


Worst Kept Secrets

by EachPeachPearPlum



Series: Secrets 'verse [1]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Less angst than the summary suggests, M/M, Magic Revealed, Pre Season/Series 04
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-11
Updated: 2013-02-11
Packaged: 2017-11-28 23:49:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 40,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/680266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EachPeachPearPlum/pseuds/EachPeachPearPlum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gwaine knows, as soon as he meets them, how it is going to end. Which is, not well. Hearts will break, lives will be destroyed, secrets will out, and not one of them is going to live happily-ever-after.</p>
<p>But there's no way in hell that's going to stop him from trying.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Worst Kept Secrets

**Author's Note:**

> This story, the first part of a far longer set, was born pretty much as soon as Gwaine appeared in the series. It's only just starting to appear on here because the thing as a whole is nearly complete, but if you want to read the next one hundred and seventy thousand words (give or take) it's over on ff.n. Alternatively, expect it to gradually appear here over the next few weeks/months.
> 
> Comments are better than meals and money, and I'm seriously hating the whole tag thing, so if anyone has any suggestions...?
> 
> Hope you enjoy. Peach

Gwaine knows, as soon as he meets them, how it is going to end. Which is, not well. Not well at all, and not for any of them.

Not the fight, that goes just fine. Well, okay, not really the bit where he gets stabbed and passes out and wakes up in a stranger's bed without his shirt. Not that that has never happened before, of course, but usually when it does his trousers are missing too, and the stranger tends to be occupying the bed as well. But other than that, the fight goes just fine. As does the tournament, and the whole saving Prince Arthur's life thing. Banishment isn't quite the end result he'd hoped for, but he's been thrown out of plenty of places before, and none of them have been quite so polite about it.

No one has ever said goodbye to him, either, when it happened.

And then he meets them again (well, Merlin, anyway), and there's the quest and the midget on the bridge and the not-quite-dragons (because Gwaine knows his mythical beasts, as do all noble boys who grow up so close to a county that forbids magic, and he knows that wyverns look way more like worms that those things do). He saves Arthur's life again (well, Merlin does, he thinks, sort of, even if he’s not sure how), and it's all okay as they ride off back to Camelot and he...rides off somewhere else.

At this point, he figures the foreboding feeling at their first meeting was just his imagination. Because, yeah, situations get a bit sticky in the middle, but the three of them come out of it all with nothing but a few cuts and bruises, and he gets a drink on the house at the next tavern he hits in exchange for his story.

Then, of course, third time's the charm, as the saying goes, and the shit really hits the fan. Through no fault of their own, he might add. But Arthur's dying and Merlin's shit-scared and won't leave his side and there's an immortal army and Arthur's witch of a half-sister on the throne and living in caves and he really thinks this is what the feeling was for, because there is no way the three of them are going to get through this mess intact (nine of them, when they get Elyan and Gaius from Camelot, and then Leon and Gwen, and Percival and Lancelot show up, but the feeling of doom doesn't extend to the other six, for reasons he really doesn't understand). And Gwaine is confused as hell, because he wishes he'd never jumped in on that bar fight except he doesn't, not really, because now he has friends. Or a friend, at least, but it's still more than he's ever expected, or than he’s ever really had in the past.

But they get out of that one just fine, when there looks to be no bloody hope at all; he's Sir Gwaine now, of course, which isn't really something he ever wanted, but at least none of them are dead.

It's only when they're all back in Camelot and settling in, fixing things up, that he finally realises what the problem is.

X

See, the thing is, Arthur is in love with Guinevere (and Gwaine feels wrong even thinking of her with that name. She introduces herself, always, as both Gwen and Guinevere, telling everyone to call her the former. And they do, all of them, except for Arthur. He is the only one who calls her by her full name, and the way he says it suggests that he is the only one allowed to do so, just as only he can put that emphasis on Merlin's name, or speak Morgana's with bitter distaste). Anyone can see that he loves her, adores her, breathes only for her. And anyone can see that she loves him, too.

Which should be a good thing, Gwaine thinks. At first, he is quite convinced it is. That the crown prince can love a lowly – yet, he concedes, not exactly unattractive – maid does a lot to raise Arthur in Gwaine's estimation. That and his friendship with Merlin, thinly veiled by insults and orders. After all, Merlin is usually one of the first to notice the villain of the moment, which shows him to be a pretty good judge of character: if Arthur truly is as much of a twat as he initially appears to be, Merlin wouldn't be his friend. To Gwaine, it is as simple as that.

And this realisation – that he will sign on to die for a man, a prince, spoiled and arrogant as Gwaine himself was as a child, before they lost his father and Caerleon fucked his family over, on the basis of his friendship with a servant – is what causes Gwaine to first question the reason for his unflinching trust in Merlin, but he shakes it off pretty quickly. Merlin is his friend, and he trusts him just as much in return, Gwaine believes.

The first problem with Arthur and Gwen's love affair is, of course, the king. Uther has recovered surprisingly well from his daughter's – _daughter's_ , and how the hell did he manage to keep that a secret so long? – betrayal. Or so they all think, until the first sighting of sorcery in Camelot, when Uther turns his accusing eyes first to Arthur, and then to his knights: he has been betrayed once by those closest to him, and he isn't going to let it happen again.

Then, when the sighting is shown to be fake (and Gwaine is a little surprised by how long it takes Gaius to work this out, given that everyone in the city knows how Gaius turned traitor against his own during the Purge – it is such a public secret, it took barely a week for Gwaine to discover it. He dismisses this suspicion, too, though, because Gaius is getting on a bit in years and it's quite a long time since he last practiced magic), the king hides himself away. He consults only with Arthur, and the small few of the king's knights who have survived their positions for more than half a decade.

Of course, Arthur shares all the important information with his knights – well, he shares it with Leon and Merlin, who make sure to tell the others at the earliest possible opportunity. Uther keeps a tight watch on his son, now, questioning his every interaction with anyone except Merlin, who is simultaneously useful and insignificant enough to be beneath suspicion.

So the burden falls upon Merlin, mostly, to carry messages between the prince and his men. They see Arthur at training, of course, as the older knights (a term that in Camelot means little, since being knighted tends to bring one somewhat closer to death) have begrudgingly accepted the presence of the four commoners (Gwaine has kept his lineage a secret, thank you very much, and intends to continue doing so as long as possible) but Uther now observes every session, wincing each time a knight, old or new, lands a blow on his son, and there is little time for conversation. And the burden falls on Merlin to arrange trysts between the prince and his lady-love, and thus provide excuses when Arthur's absence is invariably noticed.

This is the second problem Gwaine has with the matter. His good opinion of Arthur drops hugely when he sees the stress Merlin is under. Merlin is clearly struggling to keep up with everything he has to do, what with serving the prince, ferrying messages to and fro, and keeping all of Arthur's transgressions a secret from the king and the few knights whose opinions he trusts. He is either running around after the prince, with the prince, or for the prince, with so little time for his other friends, for Gwaine or Lancelot or Gwen (not that Merlin doesn't like Perce, Leon and Elyan – Merlin, Gwaine observes, likes almost everyone – but he isn't quite as close to them, really).

So, okay, Gwaine is a little bit jealous of how much of Merlin's time is occupied by the prince – his family had money and power enough before his father died that he never had to learn to share as a child, and it's not a skill he's picked up since – but he's also concerned for Merlin's health. Which is why he drags Merlin out drinking with him and the guys – “come on, mate, Prince Charming can live without you for one bloody night” – after a particularly gruelling day's training (because while they all fight well, Arthur seems to think their style leaves something to be desired).

The tavern they frequent is not the sort of place Gwaine would ever have drunk in a month or so ago, before he came to Camelot. Hell, it's not the sort of place he would've been _allowed_ to drink in back then: it was only because he first came with the others (mostly Leon, who vouched for his good behaviour) that he is allowed in now. No, their tavern is large and well lit, both by windows during the day and numerous candles at night. There are actual tables, too, not just the benches and long tables Gwaine is used to. The barmaids are still buxom – as all barmaids should be – and friendly, but their father is the proprietor of the place and has made it very clear that any man caught acting without due propriety towards his girls won't be allowed back in again. Since they serve the best ale in the city – and, incidentally, make you pay for it when they hand it over, though this isn't a problem now that Gwaine is earning money, something else he’d never really expected – and he has gotten used to drinking with company, Gwaine complies. There are enough patrons (the crowd includes many of the castle's servants, knights and even a few of the titled gentry) that Gwaine feels no need to get himself barred for chasing the wrong girl.

It is only after a few pints that Gwaine asks Merlin about it all, their conversation barely audible under Percival's booming voice (the knight, usually so quiet when sober, turns into a fantastic singer after three flagons of mead, the notes strong and deep and spine tingling). Merlin replies, looking more relaxed than he has in weeks, that Arthur did not ask him to play messenger and meeting arranger; he volunteered for the job.

Gwaine is inclined to doubt this, because the prince has a power one only every wants good men to have, the power to get exactly what he wants while convincing the person doing it that it was their idea. But this power has never worked on Merlin before – Merlin, who picks and chooses which orders he wants to follow and which he thinks should be ignored, who does what he wants when he wants, and to hell with propriety – and the prince is (probably) far too honourable to use his evil gift on his friends.

His friend, Gwaine muses drunkenly – and, apparently, out loud – is a spectacularly poor servant. Merlin laughs and agrees with him, clumsily clunking his fresh tankard (when did that appear?) against Gwaine's empty one (when did that disappear?).

“But,” he slurs, clapping Merlin on the shoulder as the room sways around him, “you're a bloody good friend.”

It is Merlin's slight blush and broad grin, crooked slightly higher at one side than the other, that makes Gwaine swear to be Merlin's stress relief until such a time as King Bat-Shit-Crazy either kicks the bucket or gets his act together enough to loosen his hold on Arthur and thus lessen the burdens on Merlin.

That thought firmly in mind, he saunters (as much as one can saunter when one's circulatory system is more booze than blood) over to the pretty blonde who has been making eyes at him from across the room for the last hour or so, leaving Merlin to turn to Lance, who has spent most of the evening staring morosely into his mead as if it owes him the answers to all life's big questions but has decided not to pay up.

X

Lance, Gwaine soon realises, is the third problem with Gwen-and-Arthur. Or, rather, his feelings are. Because Gwaine isn't quite as close to him as he is to Merlin, but Lance is a brother-fighter and Merlin has told him how honourably he backed out when he saw how Arthur feels for Gwen. Gwaine admires honour and loyalty in a person, so Lance is a good guy in his eyes.

It is only when Gwaine sees how Lance's face lights up when he sees Gwen, even though he rarely says more than a gruff hello to her, that he works out the reason why Lance makes for such a depressing drunk (playing happy when sober is easy, but it gets way trickier with the addition of alcohol); Lancelot is still in love with her.

Really, Gwaine thinks, it is quite ridiculous. The girl is pretty, yes, but he's bedded many pretty girls. Gwen is no more special than the rest of them (not that this is an opinion he'd ever share with anyone, because they are all so loyal to their prince and as a consequence are freakishly protective of his girl).

He wishes she'd stop finding excuses to come talk to Merlin during training, too, because the second she settles herself primly on the grass beside Merlin, Arthur and Lance get infinitely better at fighting. After the first time the two of them nearly batter each other to death in an attempt to impress her, Gwaine does his best to make sure they never spar with each other when she's around. They're still mighty fearsome against other people, of course, but at least the rest don't mind conceding defeat. He's bloody glad when Leon seems to put the facts together as well, and the two of them alternate in who has to distract whom in order to protect the idiots from each other. He's also glad that Elyan doesn't have a clue how strongly they both feel for his sister, because then he'd jump in to protect her virtue and Gwaine really can't keep an eye on all three of them at once, even with Leon's help.

X

Gwaine's fourth and final objection takes a while to crystallize fully in his mind. He knows that there is something more than the mad king, Merlin's stress levels, and Lancelot's feelings that makes Arthur and Gwen being _Arthur-and-Gwen_ a truly terrible idea. He just doesn't know what it is.

He takes to helping Merlin when he can, when he's not busy himself. He mucks out stables and polishes armour, makes sure Merlin is eating three meals a day, and drags him to the tavern with the knights at least once a week. He is looking for Merlin to bring him along on an impromptu hunting trip and to hell with Arthur's demands (despite the fact that Merlin has told him more than one that he doesn't regret _volunteering_ to help Arthur, Gwaine still talks of demands and orders, if only to see the look of patient exasperation Merlin pulls at him each time he does so) when the fourth problem makes itself clear.

Gwaine cannot find Merlin. That isn't the problem.

It's _a_ problem, certainly, but not _the_ problem.

After half an hour of following Arthur at a distance, he finally manages to catch him without Uther looking over his shoulder to ask him where Merlin is. From the sheepish mumbles (Gwaine has made no secret of how little he likes Merlin's new tasks, but he is surprised to discover that Arthur isn't happy with the situation either) that he gets in reply, he infers that Merlin has offered to set up another secret rendezvous location. With further prodding, he discovers it is in a dusty old room in the abandoned west wing of the castle (the wing was, apparently, where Uther and Igraine lived during their marriage, and has been unoccupied since then, cleaned occasionally but mostly ignored). So, off he goes; clearly, hunting is not an option today, but he figures he can help Merlin clean and then stand watch.

With two of them, the task goes pretty quickly. Gwaine can tell the room has been used reasonably recently, because it is far cleaner than the hallway outside, but Merlin seems to be happy for the help anyway. Afterwards, they sit in the hall chatting, trying not to touch anything they don't have to – the place is hideously unclean – or disturb the dust to the point that anyone passing by later will be able to tell someone has been there. In the unlikely event that someone appears and questions their presence, they are to claim that Uther has ordered no one enter the room; the king himself rarely ventures this far from the castle core, and whilst many people are still alive to regret the stupidity of the last poor sod to question the king's orders, the poor sod in question is not one of them.

It is the brief, almost imperceptible flicker of jealousy in Merlin's eyes as first Arthur and then Gwen slip down the corridor and into the now clean room that starts Gwaine's discovery of just how completely screwed they all are. The other two are too busy sharing saliva to see Merlin flinch as he locks the door behind them, but Gwaine is not.

Merlin's smile when he walks back down to where Gwaine is sitting is brittle, but it is still a smile, so he pretends not to have noticed anything. Out loud he comments on how something he had for lunch must not have agreed with him, if the burning in his chest is anything to go by, but in his head he is desperately trying to work out what is so fucking special about this girl that she has his three closest friends panting at her heels like dogs. Because she is lovely, inside and out (he wouldn't mind sneaking off to a secret room with her himself, if he thought she would be interested and he would survive fighting off the three men determined to protect her – no, he corrects himself, four, not that Merlin would prove much of a challenge, assuming Gwaine could bring himself to hurt the big-eared fool). But she is, if he is totally honest, a little bit of a slut. Not that he isn't, but he makes sure his tarts (and whatever the male equivalent of a tart may be, Gwaine isn't entirely sure) know that it will last a night, a couple of nights at most. He doesn't promise forever, or even hint at anything permanent, not since that debacle a few years back when he was almost stuck marrying some girl whose name he can't remember now.

Gwen seems to have no such compunctions. Merlin, whilst not entirely sober (and a drunk Merlin shares his secrets very quickly), has told him of her bumbling, almost accidental flirtation with him when he first came to Camelot and of her kissing him, of her slightly less bumbling and almost certainly deliberate flirting with Lancelot when _he_ first came to Camelot and of her kissing _him_ as well, and Gwaine has witnessed for himself her kissing Arthur (and he really is pleased they aren't within hearing distance of that door, because he is certain they haven't stopped with a little tongue wrestling). Of course, as far as Arthur is aware, he is Gwen's first romance in the circle, while Lancelot knows only about himself and Arthur. Merlin, though, knows everything and thus, Gwaine thinks, a little contemptuously but mostly just with sympathy, he should definitely know better than to fall for the hussy.

And Gwaine has never thought of her as a slut or a hussy before today, and he really cannot work out why he thinks it now.

X

He is still mulling the matter over several days later at training. The sun is bright, the day the warmest of the year, solidly spring; Gwaine is grateful for the warming weather, although he imagines hours of training in the middle of summer will be just as unpleasant as hours of training in the slippery, sticky, freezing mud that has coated everything through final days of winter. He glances at Merlin, sitting on the sidelines – just in case Arthur needs him with some urgency, although at least he has a box of some sort to perch on, rather than the wet grass – and sees a bright smile appear on his face before being quickly smothered.

Gwaine turns, a look at Leon showing him to be busy teaching a particularly difficult move to Percival: no help from him, then. He'll have to take one of the fools himself and hope Elyan can defend himself against the other without working out the reason for the sudden increase in strength. Lancelot is closest to him, a few yards to his left, while Arthur is just entering the training field and ambling over towards the five of them.

Confident that he and Elyan can, if needs be, get to Lance and the prince before they get to each other (even if Elyan doesn't know they have to), Gwaine turns back to Merlin, and is surprised that Gwen is not settling herself down beside him, ready to watch the mayhem she is responsible for. In fact, she isn't anywhere in view. Gwaine is confused; understandably so, he thinks. It is well established that Gwen is not a sorceress – despite multiple accusations to the contrary – and thus cannot just have vanished. Besides, if she had, Merlin would have shouted or something.

But, Gwaine knows, Merlin is definitely jealous of Arthur and Gwen, and his face lit up just now in exactly the same way Lance and Arthur's do whenever they spot Gwen.

And then something clicks in his brain, and he wonders how he manages to survive whilst being so colossally stupid.

Arthur.

Merlin is jealous, yes, but not because he loves Gwen – who, a small part of Gwaine's brain that is still aware of an outside world tells him, is now actually present, sitting beside Merlin as he had expected her to be a few minutes earlier.

Arthur.

He should have known from the start, should have known from Merlin's confidence in Arthur, his willingness to follow him anywhere, to die with him or for him or because of him, his fear, worry, loyalty: his love.

Merlin is in love with Arthur.

Gwaine's brain finally stops marvelling at its own failings and registers everything that the tiny part of him still capable of external awareness is trying to inform him of. Namely, that Lance and Arthur's love-fuelled, Gwen-centric rematch is well underway, Leon is still wrestling with Percival, Gwen is biting her lip as she watching her ex-something battling furiously with her current-something ('boyfriend' seems such a trivial term when one of the men in question is first in line for the throne) and Merlin is shouting Gwaine's name and something about Elyan, who is far closer than he was before Gwaine entered his bizarrely deep thoughts and is raising his fighting staff for a headshot.

Gwaine has barely enough time to be relieved they aren't fighting with swords today before the blow hits its mark and he is knocked into unconsciousness.

X

When he wakes up, several faces are hanging over him, blurs slowly clearing to reveal an anxious Merlin, an apologetic Elyan, and a Gaius, his eyebrows performing their usual acrobatics.

The pain in his head hits first, but the one in his chest is not far behind.

Because Gwen is not a slut, or a hussy, or any of the myriad names Gwaine has been calling her in his head since he first started thinking Merlin loves her. She is sweet and kind and, oh, look, she's also sort of worried, and he really wants to apologise to her because it's really not her fault Lance and the stupid prick of a prince are in love with her. But if he opens his mouth he might vomit. Or will, actually; there is no question about it.

Because Gwaine is just as oblivious to his own feelings as people have told him he is to the feelings of others (in his defence, though, he has never actually had feelings for someone before, not beyond friendship or lust).

Because Merlin is as straight as...something very, very not-straight (the pain in his head is beginning to exceed the one in his heart now, so he thinks his failure to find a suitable comparison is justifiable) and Gwaine doesn't stand a chance with him: the only man Merlin has eyes for is his master.

Gwaine is glad when the faces hovering above him blur again, and he falls back into darkness.

X

As he is recovering from his injury – confined to his chambers, despite the fact that he is neither nauseous nor having problems with his vision and thinking, and thus knows his head injury is most likely nothing to worry about – Gwaine asks the servant who brings his food (not Merlin, who is busy being Arthur's servant but, like the rest of the circle, visits when he can) to bring him paper, ink and quills. He then spends the next day trying to draw lines of love, loyalty and friendship between five names.

Arthur is in love with Gwen, as is Lancelot. Gwen loves Arthur back, and was at some point interested in Lance (and Merlin, but seeing as he certainly isn't interested in her now, whether or not he may have been in the past, Gwaine tends to leave out this point). Lancelot won't act on his feelings because he is too loyal and because he doesn't think he has a chance compared to Arthur (and doesn't Gwaine know how that feels). Merlin is in love with Arthur and is best friends with Gwen, who should really be his rival and not a friend at all. Then again, Lance and Arthur are friends, and, once he looks beyond his jealousy (which he was well aware of before his recent realisation, accounting it to having to share his first true friend with someone who neither appreciates nor deserves him), Gwaine would probably call Arthur his third closest friend. And, of course, Gwaine is in love with Merlin.

He stops then, and starts over.

Merlin is friendly with all four of them, and feels more than friendly things for Arthur. Arthur is also friends with all of them (not that he will admit it), and is far more than friends with Gwen. Gwen is friends with Arthur and Merlin, if not friendly then at least not actively hostile towards Gwaine, and may or may not still have more than friendly feelings for Lancelot. Lance is friends with them all as well, and feels more than friendly things for Gwen. Gwaine is mostly friends with all of them, and is in love with Merlin.

When every one of his diagrams ends the same way, serving only to confuse him further, Gwaine burns them all in his fireplace and begins to plan.

X

Planning, hindsight tells him, is a terrible idea.

X

Because, Gwaine tells himself, he doesn't have to have Merlin, doesn't need him in order to be happy. Obviously, it would make him very happy, ridiculously so, but really, as long as Merlin is happy, Gwaine will be okay with it. Mostly, anyway. And the only way Merlin will ever be properly happy is with Arthur. So, for reasons he cannot quite work out as soon as he thinks too hard about them, Gwaine is trying to find a way to set up the man he loves with the man that _he_ loves. It is, he thinks, decidedly fucked up. But he plans anyway.

The fact that Arthur is with Gwen is only a minor complication. Gwaine is excellent at ending his own relationships, even if he does say so himself, and he can see no reason why he shouldn't be just as competent at ending other people's. He just has to manufacture the correct situation and let them get on with it.

After all, every relationship has the potential to end in flames and fury and finding comfort in another's arms. To realise that potential, all that is needed is a catalyst.

Unfortunately, Gwaine needs to observe them all in places other than his room when they visit him in order to ascertain what or who will suffice as a catalyst, so his planning further will have to wait until he is proclaimed fit to leave.

X

After what feels like forever, Gaius gives Gwaine the okay to resume training, with strict orders to avoid blows to the head at all costs (because, of course, he _deliberately_ sought out the last one) and not to drink for at least a week.

When he joins them all on the training field, Elyan is still apologetic and Leon is looking almost as harassed as Merlin. Clearly, Lance and Arthur have not yet got a hold of themselves, and keeping them apart is so much easier when there are two people around who know to do so. Indeed, very little seems to have changed in the time he has been gone, which, when he thinks about it, is only logical; it may have felt like months to him, but has actually not even been a week. Everyone is behaving in much the same way as they always have, giving Gwaine little assistance in discovering the ideal pawn for his plans.

Then Arthur calls the session to order and Gwaine – in light of recent events – thinks it best to pay attention rather than continue musing.

X

He grows bored of the restrictions on his alcohol consumption after only two days, going along with the other knights to the tavern. Merlin follows willingly, mostly so he can mumble about how the 'no drinking' rule was there for Gwaine's health, not as a punishment. Gwaine is flattered by his concern, but refuses to listen; Merlin worries far too much, and is an avid follower of all rules that don't lead to Arthur nearly dying (even if he does seem to have no idea whatsoever of class distinctions).

He is well into his third mug when he catches Merlin muttering about Gwen and Lancelot under his breath. This in itself is not hugely unusual – Merlin talks often of all his friends – but the venomous undercurrent to his tone is.

Gwaine laughs. “You know Lance is always watching her. Not really a cause for anger, is it?”

Merlin seems slightly perturbed that Gwaine has noticed his chuntering, but a smile seems to deal with that. Still, he glances around (Perce hasn't drunk enough to sing yet, so the groups around them might actually be able to eavesdrop if they are so inclined) before replying, and Gwaine instinctively leans in closer. “Of course I know he watches her,” Merlin states, looking glum. “But she doesn't usually look back. Too busy watching Arthur.”

Gwaine, too concerned with looking for the resentment that should be in Merlin's voice but isn't, almost misses the key part of this statement. “You think Gwen still has feelings for Lance?” he asks. When the only reply he gets is a shrug and grunt, he changes the subject to something more benign.

Internally, though, he is thinking furiously.

Lancelot. Gwaine's best plan so far had been to have Elyan somehow discover the secret room, but it is hardly feasible: he doesn't think a dead Arthur would do much to make Merlin happy, let alone the political fallout and destruction of the future security of the kingdom. But Lancelot, if Gwen really did think of him like that, would be just perfect. Merlin and Arthur would be happy together, as would Lance and Gwen. Then Merlin wouldn't be quite so busy and Gwaine and Leon wouldn't need to worry so much about keeping the lovesick idiots away from one another whenever Guinevere and weapons were in the general vicinity. Elyan would be happy to see his sister with a close friend, very much in love. Perce would be...well, he'd probably be just as oblivious to the whole mess as he is now, the lucky bastard. In fact, the only one not enjoying the happy-ever-afters would be Gwaine, and he's already resigned himself to that fact.

All he needs to do now is convince Lancelot to chase Gwen and it'll all be just fine.

That decided, he goes back to drinking and conversing with Merlin, before the two of them stumble back to Gwaine's room very early in the morning – Gaius had shouted rather loudly the third time Merlin woke him in the wee hours, and since then Merlin has slept on Gwaine's floor to avoid further trouble (the others mocked Gwaine the morning after the first time he left with his friend rather than some bloke or girl he'd picked up over the course the evening, but he’d just laughed it off, utterly oblivious to everything. Since then, they have referred to the days Merlin drinks with them as Gwaine's night off).

Gwaine wonders now if they had detected something he had not been aware of until far more recently, but decides it is pretty unlikely. It's all perfectly platonic, anyway: Merlin sleeps in a pile of blankets on the floor and Gwaine sleeps in the bed. He'd offered Merlin his bed the first time, but he had replied, laughing, that he'd heard from the others how there was a different person in there almost every night (not quite true, because Gwaine prefers to go back to a stranger's room rather than bring them to his, when he has the choice, but he understands the point) and wouldn't touch those sheets unless he was paid to. Which had caused Gwaine a moment or two of imagining situations under which Merlin might be paid to touch someone's bedding, and he had felt a stirring of anger before realising Merlin was talking about his duties as a servant – really, Gwaine is amazed he managed to hide his feelings from himself for so long.

X

It isn’t that he doesn't trust Merlin's judgement, but Gwaine likes, where possible, to check all facts for himself before he acts. A few days of careful observation is all it takes to confirm that Gwen still feels something – certainly lust, and in all probability love – for Lancelot. And so, Gwaine puts his plan into action.

He begins with subtle encouragement, dropping Gwen's name into conversation with Lance, not so often as to be suspicious, but enough to make sure she is on his mind as much as is possible. When that has no apparent effects, he casually mentions how he thinks it is so unfair on poor Guinevere that Arthur has to ignore her whenever they happen to bump into each other in public, how she deserves someone better, someone who loves her enough to risk everything to be with her. Lance just grunts at him and orders another drink.

The following morning, Sir Leon (because he is definitely speaking here as one of Camelot's most senior knights, rather than as Gwaine's friend) comes up to him and tells him, in no uncertain terms, that they do not need another idiot muddying the water with his affections, so he better get his act together and back off from Guinevere or else.

It is only with this well-spoken threat ringing in his ears that Gwaine realises how his words to Lancelot can be interpreted ( _oops_ ). He assures Leon that everything is fine, he has no feelings for Gwen whatsoever, and makes a note never to mention Gwen or Arthur to Lance while Leon is around.

Phase two of the plan involves less subtlety but more secrecy (which is good, because subtle has never been one of Gwaine's strong points). The list of people he is keeping the plan from is ridiculously large. In fact, he's keeping it from pretty much everyone, because despite the fact that everyone but Uther will be happy with its results (and he won't know about it, really, just like he doesn't know about Gwen and Arthur now), no one other than him will think the plan itself is a wise idea.

No, Gwaine has to be careful, if he wants to keep his person intact, which he does; he likes his person to be very much intact, with all pieces firmly attached. So he makes sure he and Lance are entirely alone the afternoon he tells him that he noticed Gwen watching him at training that morning.

Lance just sniffs and replies that of course she was watching him, because he was fighting her prince and she wouldn't want Arthur getting hurt.

“No, it was definitely you she was _watching_ ,” Gwaine says, waggling his eyebrows suggestively in case the inflection on the last word is lost on Lance. Who misses the eyebrow waggling, too, the oblivious fool.

Merlin has described Lance as a reasonably smart guy. Now, Gwaine is far from questioning Merlin's ability to gauge a chap's character, but he has seen nothing to suggest this opinion is correct. As far as he can tell, Lance's intelligence must have been contained in his once-long hair (Merlin described his physical appearance almost as much as his innate nobility and fighting prowess, which again has Gwaine questioning how he can be so slow on the uptake, because no man with more than a passing interest in the opposite gender notices when a woman has had her hair cut, let alone if another man has), because the man is blind to anything remotely subtle.

So a few days later he decides, screw it, he's going to have to be obvious if he wants anything to change. He tells Lancelot that he saw Guinevere crying in a corridor the day before, and then happened across her talking to Merlin about how she thinks she might have chosen the wrong man. He neither saw nor heard any such thing (because even if Gwen had been thinking that, she certainly wouldn't have confessed it to Arthur's closest friend), but from the dazed look on Lance's face it has done the trick.

X

That evening, Gwaine is looking for Merlin for their weekly drinking session and cannot find him anywhere. He looks everywhere likely, and then risks the king's wrath to ask Arthur if he has seen him. Arthur has not, but tells him that Gaius was looking for Merlin around noon to run some errands. But when he interrupts Gaius (who is making something that may be life-savingly important or might just be a cream to cure warts – either way, it looks and smells foul, and Gwaine hopes for the sake of the patient that it’s not meant to be eaten), he is told that the elderly physician last saw Merlin in the early afternoon when he sent him to the forest to gather herbs. However, his collecting bag is sat on the table, full of the plants he was sent to get, so he has clearly made it back to the city at some point (a fact that Gwaine is greatly relieved by, because he knows how unlucky Merlin can be at times and would not enjoy searching the forest in the dark, most likely alone).

The next place to try is, he decides, Gwen’s home. She blushes visibly when he asks if she’s seen MErlin – quite an achievement, with her skin tone – but tells him nothing of his whereabouts. Finally, he goes to the tavern, in the hope that Merlin has gone there ahead of him (unlikely, but not completely impossible).

Before he can get there, though, he spies Merlin walking towards the castle from the direction of the main gate. “Merlin!” he shouts, and sees him jump. “You alright, mate? Been looking everywhere for you. Drinking time.”

Merlin walks close enough to be heard at a normal volume, sending apologetic looks at the people staring disapprovingly (Gwaine had been perfectly happy shouting and ignoring the glares, but apparently Merlin feels guilty). “Sorry, Gwaine,” he mutters, head down to avoid eye contact. “I'm not really in a drinking mood. Another day, though, I promise.”

This is more than Merlin's usual reluctance to get totally wasted, so he swallows his protests – he enjoys their nights out, the way Merlin relaxes just a little bit – and lets the matter go. “Alright, I suppose.” He clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth as he thinks. “Some other time, then. I'll see you tomorrow.”

And then Merlin is gone, without so much as a goodbye, hurrying back to the castle to – Gwaine assumes – his room in Gaius' chambers, leaving Gwaine to head disappointedly to their tavern alone. He proceeds to get riotously drunk and stumble home with some guy he has never seen before and hopes, from the quality of their unbelievably brief encounter, never to see again.

X

Merlin isn't there to watch training in the morning. Arthur comes over to yell at Gwaine for getting the idiot – Arthur's words, not Gwaine's – so drunk he forgets to show up for work in the morning, then is surprisingly apologetic when Gwaine tells him Merlin stayed home last night.

When he still hasn't seen Merlin by mid-afternoon, Gwaine goes to Gaius', who tells him Merlin hasn't left his room yet today, that his door is locked, and that he doesn't want to wake the poor lad – again, not Gwaine's phrase – when he's been so busy lately.

Gwaine thinks the matter over for a minute, decides his concern overrides his compunctions, and hammers on Merlin's door. It takes far more banging and shouting than he is happy with to get a reply, and Merlin's voice is groggy when it comes.

“Gaius? What is it?”

“It's Gwaine, mate. 'S the matter?”

There is another moment of silence, and Gwaine almost expects the door to open. It doesn't.

“Oh.” Merlin finally says. “It's nothing, I'm just not feeling too great. Don't worry, and tell Arthur I'll be back tomorrow.”

And that is that.

X

On the second day of Merlin's absence, Leon asks Gwaine what the problem is. Gwaine shrugs.

He goes by Merlin's room again, only to hear that Merlin still isn't feeling well. He asks Gaius if Merlin is eating. Gaius replies that a hunk of bread and a few apples vanished overnight, so he assumes so.

X

Day three, Gwaine asks Lance to check on Merlin, in the hope that he'll get a more detailed response, but apparently he has to be somewhere else very quickly, so Gwaine sends Elyan instead.

The door still doesn't open.

X

Gwaine is really rather worried by day four. He follows Arthur when he goes to talk to Merlin, thinking _good, someone Merlin will have to open the door to_.

But he doesn't. Gwaine sees the concern flit over Arthur's face as they both stand at the bottom of the steps to Merlin's room. Gaius has left them alone, thinking perhaps the absence of adult supervision (well, mature adult supervision, since they are none of them children, no matter how young they act) will convince Merlin to talk.

“Open the door, _Mer_ lin,” the prince growls, lurks for a minute or two, then sighs huffily and storms away.

Gwaine waits 'til his footsteps are gone before pressing his ear to the door. He doesn't knock himself, doesn't think Merlin will appreciate knowing someone has heard his muffled sobs.

He sits there for over an hour, until the sobs turn into snuffly breaths that Gwaine knows mean Merlin is asleep, before finally leaving, his heart heavy.

X

The fifth day is a Wednesday, market day, which means the knights train in the afternoon rather than the morning, so Gwaine doesn't have a chance to try reach Merlin until early evening.

When he gets there, he finds Lancelot begging a locked door for forgiveness, promising he will never do it again. He hears something heavy hit the door, and realises he hasn't seen Gwen at training since the day Merlin refused to go drinking with him, despite the fact that she usually stops by at least every other day, even if only for a minute or two. It could be accounted for by general busyness every other day, but Gwaine knows she has market days off: she can't have been too busy today.

He whispers a string of expletives under his breath and kicks himself for his stupidity. This is his doing, he knows it. Not that he can admit to it, apologise, or ask Gwen, Lance or Merlin what has happened.

He drinks some place other than their usual tavern that night, a total dive, and cannot remember anything following his eighth flagon.

X

Gwaine wakes far too early on day six, his head pounding worse than he can recall it ever being before, sandwiched between two warms bodies. He hunts furiously for his trousers in the room he doesn't know (plain, no crests on the walls, so not a noble's, but not one of the single room houses in the lower town either), before realising that he is still wearing them, and his shirt, and both the girls are fully dressed as well.

Gwaine leaves before they regain consciousness, returning to his room to wash...something from his hair (he knows it is not vomit, blood or excrement, human or animal, but other than that he has no idea). He hides under foul-smelling sheets – Merlin was right, they really do need changing – until Leon knocks on and then opens the door, yelling that one person locking themselves away is more than enough and he needs someone reliable present in case Gwen shows up.

This, the first overt mention either of them has made of the Arthur-Gwen-Lancelot situation (and the first time anyone has ever considered _Gwaine_ to be reliable) is enough to shock Gwaine from his guilt and self-pity. He washes and dresses while Leon waits outside, then, as they walk, listens gratefully as the senior knight tells him that Percival went to see Merlin early this morning. Perce apparently got not only an “I'm fine, just sick” but also a “thank you for your concern” and a “sorry for the trouble I'm causing” from the other side of the locked door.

Gwaine spends the day flitting from elation at these signs of Merlin's recovery to anger at himself and everyone else because Merlin has some sort of situation to recover from in the first place. As a result he spends the morning mucking out the stables after calling Lancelot a disloyal ignoramus in front of Arthur (which he deserves, because Lancelot would never have done whatever it is he won't do again with Guinevere if Gwaine hadn't pushed him into it). His afternoon is whiled away in the stocks for calling Arthur a condescending, rude, stupid, blond prat in front of the king (which he deserves even more for his failure to notice that Uther was there and it's really only the fact that he said nothing worse than _prat_ that allows him to keep his head where it's supposed to be).

By the time he has finished washing unidentified substances from his hair for the second time that day, it is too late for Gwaine to check on Merlin, so he changes his sheets and goes to sleep stone cold sober for once.

X

The seventh day, Gwaine decides, will be the last. Today, he will fix what he broke.

He goes to training willingly and follows all orders for once. Rather than reassure anyone, this just garners looks of suspicion. Afterwards, he visits the lower town and spends a couple of hours purchasing Merlin's favourite foods and several bottles of wine (and what sort of shop keeps wine next to apples? It’s just asking for trouble, that). He then proceeds to tidy his chambers until he is rudely interrupted by four knights, a smirking prince and a richly dressed maidservant (the start of a bad joke if ever he heard one).

The comparison with pre-date behaviour does not occur to Gwaine until they ask him who the lucky lady (“or lad,” Percival adds, showing himself to be far more observant than they all thought) is, mostly because Gwaine has never actually had a date.

He tells them there is neither lad nor lady great enough to contain his passionate, free-spirited soul, he just couldn't abide living in such filth any longer, and aren't they there for a reason anyway?

Bizarrely enough, no one questions this blatant defensiveness.

When the seven of them walk uninvited into Gaius' home, they find the old man telling Merlin's door that supper is on the table and will it please eat it while it is hot today rather than in the middle of the night. The door does not reply, and neither does Merlin, who they assume to be the true target of Gaius' words.

Arthur shouts. Lancelot begs. Gwen's timid voice (Gwen, timid? Gwaine realises again just how truly he has fucked up, because Gwen is rarely less than self-assured, although he has heard she used to be) pleads. Leon asks nicely and respectfully for Merlin to leave his room, please. Elyan tells jokes. Finally, Gwaine says, “open the bloody door, Merlin, or Percival will knock it down.” He doesn't, and Gaius looks alarmed as Percival orders everyone to stand well back before charging.

The door splinters on the first hit, falling on the second. Gaius' face moves from alarmed to appalled, although his eyebrows lower slightly when Arthur promises that a replacement will be paid for (Gwaine suspects the one paying will be him).

Merlin emerges, looking simultaneously sheepish and annoyed. He returns Gwen's hug stiffly and nods at Lancelot. They both relax subtly enough that Gwaine thinks he is the only one who notices.

Arthur claps Merlin on the shoulder and says, “Come on, then, idiot.” They troop out, Leon promising they'll keep an eye on Merlin, get him a proper hot meal, at which Gaius laughs but looks grateful anyway.

X

Gwen leaves them between the end of the meal and the arrival of their first drinks, Elyan walking her home. Arthur stays for only two drinks, while Percival is booming by the end of his third and is taken back to the castle by a mirthful Sir Leon. Lance would usually head back with the others, but he clearly wants to talk to Merlin, so Gwaine obligingly heads to the bar for another round.

He chats with the barmaid for a bit – the youngest of the three sisters, if he remembers correctly – until she says, “They're your friends, right? Could you sort that out before my father has to, please?”

Gwaine turns to see Lance and Merlin struggling over a knife. “Shit. Sorry,” he says, scooping up their drinks. He hurries over, realising as he does so that this is not a fight, as such. After all, Lance is far stronger, yet the blade seems to be hovering over his wrist: a blood oath, he thinks. Gwaine plonks the drinks down on the table, their contents sploshing over slightly.

“That's enough of that,” he states quietly, plucking the knife from their suddenly still hands. He tucks it into his belt, next to his own dagger (Camelot may be the closest thing to a home he's had since he became old enough to realise his house was nothing more than that, but he still isn't comfortable wandering around unarmed).

“Gwaine,” Lancelot says, “I need that.”

“Really?” he replies. “Because Merlin didn't look all that keen on you waving a knife around.”

“But I-”

“You love her. I understand,” Merlin interrupts, resuming what Gwaine assumes is the conversation he left to allow them to have. Lancelot's gaze flicks briefly away from Merlin's then returns, the look on his face that of a man about to face a punishment he has long resigned himself to – so long resigned to it, in fact, that he seems relieved by its proximity.

There is a flash, immediately followed by a crash of thunder, so close as to be almost simultaneous. Gwaine jumps – he is sure the sky had been clear for miles around before they came into the tavern, and there has barely been a breath of wind all day – and Lance's eyes widen slightly (more alarmed than afraid, Gwaine thinks), but Merlin looks unruffled as he continues speaking. “I truly do understand, Lancelot. But if either of you ever do anything that will hurt Arthur again, you will regret it. I swear it, on the sun and moon, on earth, air, fire and water.”

A second lightning flash follows this speech, no further away than the first, and a gust of wind blows, splattering raindrops against the windows and causing candles across the room to flicker slightly. Gwaine sways, clearly drunker than he thought he was, because he feels (with a level of absolute certainty only copious quantities of alcohol can produce) that it is more the floor's fault for moving than any weakness of his limbs. He sits down, figuring that if his lack of balance is due to alcohol, sitting will solve the problem, and if it is actually the case that the ground has some sort of grudge against him, at least he won't have quite so far to fall.

Merlin's seriousness is gone almost as soon as he finishes speaking, a grin appearing on his face so quickly that Gwaine momentarily forgets to breathe; it is not that Merlin's smile is particularly breathtaking, but the transition from the anxious, overworked Merlin of weeks past to this Merlin, who is actually happy, is something to see. Lance seems almost as changed by this unusual oath, calmer, his sins forgiven but not forgotten. He raises his drink to Merlin then drains it.

“Right,” he says, standing. “I shall go now. I truly am sorry, Merlin. You do not know how much.”

Merlin only nods in reply, still smiling.

“Haven't heard that oath before,” Gwaine says, when the door has closed behind the other knight.

Merlin blinks, as if only just realising the exchange between him and Lance has been witnessed. “Ah, yes. It's old, very old, and not used often. But it was necessary.” This last part is said with an alarming level of conviction. “I suppose you want to know what all this” – he makes a vague motion that Gwaine interprets as representing the week of worrying he has just endured, the peculiarities of this evening, and the presiding cause of it all – “was about, don't you?”

“Hmm,” he replies, trying to agree without sounding overly curious or revealing how much of the whole mess is his fault. “Gwen and Lance, right?” That doesn't seem too unreasonable a conclusion to reach; anyone with eyes knows Lance loves her, and their behaviour of the last week has been pretty damning. “You caught 'em, then spent the last week avoiding us all, trying to decide whether or not to tell Arthur, yeah?”

“You got all the important parts, yes.” Merlin smiles, his eyes full of a peculiar sort of relief. “You probably want a few more details, though, don't you?”

Gwaine thinks about declining, even if he is desperately interested in just what Merlin saw, but the other man seems to be genuinely hoping for the opportunity to unburden himself. “Wouldn't say no,” he laughs.

Merlin spends the next hour putting story-flesh on the bare-bones-facts Gwaine knows. He tells Gwaine of returning from running errands for Gaius and going to hunt for Arthur. Of finding Arthur to be in counsel with the king, and so going to tidy the rendezvous room for lack of anything better to do. Of seeing Gwen and Lance on the way there, her hands inside his shirt, his right in her hair and left at the ties on the back of her dress. Of the tongues in each other's mouths, the way they wrench apart at the sound of Merlin's startled gasp, guilt making a mockery of their pretty faces.

“And they both open their mouths but I, I don't know, I just can't. So I run to the woods – that's where I was coming back from when you saw me. And I suppose you know the rest.”

“You didn't think to talk to anyone, did you?” Gwaine asks, but it isn't really a question: of course Merlin didn't even consider talking about it. “Obviously, Arthur and those two and Elyan weren't an option, but you could've said something to me. Or Leon, for that matter; you can't pretend you haven't seen us trying to keep them apart whenever Gwen's around. And can't you find some way to keep her away, anyway, at least when there's sharp objects around?”

“I've tried. She's bored. With Morgana gone, her tasks are assigned by anyone with seniority, but they're all uncomfortable about giving orders to the woman who will be their queen. She has nothing to do.” Merlin smiles, sadly. “I couldn't talk to you, though. I'd have liked to, but...there's something else. You and Leon know the thing with Lancelot and Gwen is there, but...”

“But what?” Gwaine asks, when it becomes apparent Merlin is not finishing that sentence any time soon. “But we don't know about you? Your feelings? Kind of do, actually. Well, don't think Leon does, probably, but I know. You love him. Arthur.” Merlin's face has gotten steadily paler through that declaration (and he wasn't all that colourful to begin with) and has reached the point where Gwaine is fairly sure he'll be able to see straight through him if he squints hard enough. Then Merlin thunks his head onto the table, directly into the small pool of beer left when Gwaine put the drinks down too quickly in order to get the knife away from them. He lifts it back up again immediately, wiping his face on his sleeve with a grimace.

“Tact's not really your strong point, is it, Gwaine?” he mumbles, not quite making eye contact.

Gwaine is a little offended, because he is quite sure that if a situation ever required him to be tactful he'd be just fine at it. He just hasn't met such a situation. He is about to say so, when he realises that Merlin's bottom lip is trembling a little and his eyes are suspiciously bright. “Hey, stop that. 'S not like I'm gonna tell anyone. And I don't really care who you love. I'm hardly in a position to judge, am I?” Because he knows, how could he not, what the others think of him, what people say when they think he's not listening. “Would've told you I knew, mate, but – well, it's not really something you can just come out and say, is it? Wouldn't want someone, even a friend, to just up and tell me that he knows I'm in love with – knows I'm in love. If I was in love with someone, which, you know, I'm not.” Gwaine's mouth seems set to continue in this vein for some time, but his brain tells it forcefully to shut the bloody hell up and, mercifully, it does.

Merlin smiles at him in a slightly confused manner, and is somewhat less pale than he was before Gwaine's embarrassing, almost revealing monologue. Thinking this counts as a definite success, Gwaine drains his pint and asks “'Nother one?” Merlin nods, and seems about to stand, so Gwaine claps him on the shoulder and says, “Stay, I got it.”

They don't mention love, or the Arthur-Gwen-Lancelot problem again, just drink in a companionable near-silence, stumbling up to Gwaine's room when they get cut off.

X

When they wake, Gwaine makes Merlin eat a proper breakfast from the food he bought the previous day before he will allow him to run off after Arthur. He lets him go eventually, mostly because he doesn’t have a choice, but not before extracting a promise from him that he won't lock himself away again.

They both remember at the same time that this is not an option anyway; Merlin's room does not actually have a door at the moment. “Best stay here, mate,” Gwaine says, “'Til Prince Charming gets it fixed.”

Merlin raises an eyebrow at the name, but does not comment on it (which Gwaine considers implicit permission to call Arthur that again), instead asking, “are you sure? I wouldn't want to be in the way if you”– he searches for a delicate way to phrase it, ignoring Gwaine's smirk –”wanted to have company over.”

Gwaine crosses the short distance from smirking to outright laughter. “Wouldn't have offered if I weren't sure, would I? Can live without, er, _company_ for a night or so. Now, bugger off. Got work to do, don't you? Wouldn't want to keep her royal highness waiting. Gets awful pissy when she's hungry.”

Merlin swats ineffectively at Gwaine's head and leaves, tossing a, “See you tonight” over his shoulder as he shuts the door behind him.

X

Things in Camelot continue much as usual. Merlin is on time to work, most days, and consistently observes the knight's training, Gwen at his side more often than not. Lance seems to have taken Merlin's threat to include physical harm to Arthur as well as emotional, because he is keeping away from the prince as much as possible. Gwaine isn't really sure why, because the castle guards could take Merlin in a fight with their eyes closed and one hand tied behind their backs, let alone any of Arthur's knights: Lance really has no reason to be afraid.

As far as Gwaine hears, no one mentions Merlin's week of absence or wonders what might have caused it, though seeing as he is almost always with Merlin, this doesn't mean they aren't discussing it anyway. But Merlin is never asked, which Gwaine is pleased about; he doesn't want the truth getting out, for his and Merlin's sake as much as the other three's, and a blind man can see when Merlin is lying.

Gwaine goes drinking with the knights a couple of times, but stops when he realises his stumbling in drunk probably wakes Merlin up, and Merlin looks so calm and, Gwaine admits, sort of beautiful (in a gawky way) when he's asleep, and the one time he didn't come back at all Merlin had actually scolded him the next day. So he doesn't drink, except for the nights he can persuade Merlin to come with him. The not-drinking, of course, has the result of far fewer opportunities to pick people up; taverns have so long been his hunting grounds of choice, and he isn't entirely sure where else to go. In fact, he finds himself in his longest dry spell for some years (excepting the month or so he spent fighting as the slave trader's champion, which doesn't count – as much as Gwaine loves to be the centre of attention, there are some things he prefers not to have an audience for).

Merlin apologises for intruding every time he hears the other knights joking about Gwaine's sudden sense of self-respect, but Gwaine is strangely okay with the whole thing. He wonders how much of the trouble he has spent his life embroiled in could have been avoided if he'd kept better control over his libido and alcoholism.

But, on the other hand, the first time he met Merlin was in a tavern, so clearly booze can't be all bad. Still, the break from drinking is probably doing him and his largely pickled liver a world of good.

X

Not, of course, that this discovery stops him from opening the wine he bought towards the end of Merlin's absence, now a few weeks ago (because, despite the fact that Camelot is surrounded on all sides by forest, the city is suffering from a shortage of wooden doors), when he finds it tucked away in a cupboard. He is pleasantly merry – not quite drunk, but on his way to it – when Merlin returns.

He is expecting some sort of comment, because he knows everyone has been impressed by his change in behaviour (even if they all mock him for it), but there isn't one. Instead, Merlin just sits next to him, head in his hands.

“Merlin?” he asks, tugging his hands away when he gets no reply. Merlin's eyes are dry, not at all bloodshot, so if he's been crying it was some time ago, but the look on his face is one of abject despair. “Merlin, what is it?”

Merlin's voice, when he speaks, is soft, worrisomely so, like the tiny baby-steps one takes when retreating from a creature that will attack at the first sign of fear; Merlin is mere inches from running and screaming, breaking into a million pieces. “Arthur is.” He stops, swallows, clears his throat. “Arthur is thinking of proposing to Gwen. He's asked me to help him shop for rings tomorrow.” Gwaine opens his mouth in the hope that the right words will pour from his tongue, because his mind is blank. However, Merlin isn't finished yet. “He's asked Lancelot to take her hunting in the woods in order to keep her out of the way.”

Gwaine sighs: of course, Merlin can never be saddened only for his own fate – he must also worry about everyone else as well. “Right,” he says, when he is certain this is everything. “Let's go get you a drink.” When Merlin protests that alcohol won't help anything, Gwaine just says, “Trust me,” and, to his surprise, Merlin does.

They arrive at their tavern slightly rain-bedraggled, Merlin more morose than before. Percival slaps them both on the shoulder (Gwaine uses one hand to steady himself on Leon's arm and the other to keep Merlin upright) and Lance waits until they are sitting before passing them each a drink.

Gwaine sits in silence until there is a suitable lull in the conversation and saying – shouting, really, over the noise around them – “So, Lance, you lucky bugger. Merlin tells me you're taking the lovely Lady Guinevere hunting tomorrow.” Leon glances suspiciously at him, as does Merlin (though his expression is at least half confusion), before they both follow his gaze to Elyan.

Who says, as Gwaine hoped he would, “Are you sure that's a good idea? Gwen isn't the best at hunting.”

Lance shrugs. “It was Prince Arthur's idea, not mine, which I suppose is how you know, Merlin, is it not?” Merlin nods, once again staring at Gwaine in a mildly disconcerting way, trying to work out just what he has planned. Lance, being the kind of bloke he is (gallant, loyal, brave, chivalrous, and all those other sickening adjectives so often applied to knights that are rarely true but in this case are), continues. “If you are worried, Elyan, you should come as well. The rest of you, too.”

Leon nods, Elyan smiles, and Percival breaks into song, which they all take as a yes. Gwaine sends a 'that good enough for you?' look at Merlin before saying, “Sorry, Merlin and I have to help Prince Charming with something ridiculously important. No rest for the wicked, eh?”

Merlin smiles at them all in agreement, then sends a larger smile and another pint at Gwaine, who thanks whatever beings may be listening for this new brand of knights who are noble of character and not just blood, and thus so very easy to manipulate. _Excellent_ , he thinks; problem solved.

Except with Lancelot no longer going hunting unsupervised with Gwen and Merlin not having to deal with Arthur's love-struck praising of the girl on his own, the most pressing issue on Merlin's mind is clearly the fact that Arthur is getting engaged and will probably marry as soon as the king dies and there is no one with the power to stop him. Of course, Merlin knew all this already, but there is a difference, Gwaine supposes, between knowing something will happen and finding yourself instrumental in making it happen. Gwaine thinks how much it is crushing him on the inside that Merlin is unhappy, is the cause of his own unhappiness, and he can do nothing to help him. He is sincerely glad that is was Merlin that found Gwen and Lance together, even with how much it troubled him, because otherwise the story would have found its way back to Arthur. Who would have been truly heartbroken, which would have destroyed Merlin more than watching him be happy with someone else, and, anyway, Gwaine has no idea why he thought breaking up Arthur and Gwen would make Merlin happy, would help him at all, because Arthur is as straight as it gets.

No, Gwaine will do his best to help Merlin make Arthur happy, in order to make Merlin as happy as he possibly can be, given the shitty situation they have all found themselves in. Lance, he fears, will just have to look out for himself.

It is then that he notices the damp patch on his shoulder is due to the fact that Merlin's head is resting there. _Oh bugger_ , he thinks, because Gwaine is truly incapable of dealing with tears, but he says only, “Come on, misery guts, best get you home. Honestly, working for Prince Charming can’t really be that terrible.” It is a poor attempt at an explanation, but the others are all too busy watching Percival arm-wrestle the tavern's patrons out of their hard earned money (Gwaine is glad he's on the same side as him, he really is) to do much more than say goodbye.

X

Merlin, fortunately, has stopped crying by the time they are back to Gwaine's room. Gwaine busies himself closing curtains and lighting candles while pretending not to see Merlin wash the salt tracks from his face. At a loss for a better idea, he pours them each a goblet of wine and blurts out, “You want to talk?”

Merlin takes the goblet held out to him, shakes his head, and sits down in one of two wooden chairs by the fire. “Thanks, though,” he says, as Gwaine takes the other chair. “For the offer, and for helping sort things out for tomorrow.”

Gwaine just nods and they lapse into silence, speaking only to ask for or offer more wine.

It is the wine, Gwaine decides, that is to blame for what he does now. Without it (and the two pints in the tavern, and the wine before that – okay, he concedes, he is definitely a little drunk by now, but only a little, not enough that his judgement is entirely missing, just a little delayed), he would be using his brain far better and would never even consider doing what he does. Which is say, jokingly serious (he really isn't sure which it is, only that he shouldn't be saying it), “I can make you forget about him, if you want.”

Merlin looks surprised (exactly how Gwaine feels) for a moment, because they never mention how Merlin loves Arthur, before returning to contemplating his drink. “Believe me, Gwaine, I've tried.”

Gwaine discovers a raging pit of jealousy in his mind for a second, about to demand that Merlin tell him who and how and when so he can rip them to pieces, before realising that Merlin has not understood. He is glad, thinking he can back out without Merlin ever realising what he actually meant (because now that his brain has caught up with his words, he can see this is a fucking terrible idea). Apparently, though, his feet are just as independent as his mouth is, because he is suddenly kneeling in front of Merlin and raising his head with one hand so that they are making eye contact.

“No,” he whispers, before placing a barely-there-then-gone kiss on Merlin's lips. “I can make you _forget_ him.”

Merlin is frozen for a moment, then another, and a third, which is really a moment too many for Gwaine’s ego to be entirely happy. He pulls back, trying to stand, and begs his brain to find him a way out of this. He is about to begin spouting apologies, is even considering telling Merlin what he said to Lance (because that will at least distract Merlin from the fact that Gwaine has just propositioned him), when Merlin's hands knot in the front of his shirt, pulling him in for a second kiss. This, unlike the first, is very definitely there, hungry and open mouthed, teeth clashing, nibbling at lips that taste of wine and secrets.

And then Gwaine is on his feet, dragging Merlin with him, still breathing each other's air, his tongue in Merlin's mouth. He walks them towards the bed, toeing off his boots as he goes, footsteps clumsy and uneven, but there’s this little nagging fear in his mind that says if he pauses long enough to look where he’s going, this is all going to stop, he’s going to wake up, and Gwaine wants Merlin far too much to let that happen.

Merlin's shirt is gone by the time they get there – Gwaine has no idea how, because their lips haven't separated the whole way there but at the same time how really doesn't matter because he is _kissing_ Merlin – and his own is unfastened but still over his shoulders because their hands have moved on to other far more interesting places.

Then Merlin's knees hit the side of the mattress and he falls backwards, breaking the contact between them and landing with a sharp gasp. Gwaine uses the brief moment apart to crouch down and remove Merlin's boots, throwing them somewhere, anywhere. Something breaks when they land, but Gwaine finds he doesn't particularly care what it is; Merlin's hands are in his hair, hauling him back up to his feet and then pulling him down on top of him, and the whimper Merlin lets out when their groins brush together makes him wonder why he was bothering with boots when they are both still wearing trousers.

He kisses his way down Merlin's chest and stomach, fingers pausing in their fumbling at his laces because this is the first time he has actually seen more of Merlin's skin than his hands, face and, occasionally, neck, and Merlin has _scars_. Scars he has never seen before, because Merlin is modest, shy, changing clothes only when the room is empty or Gwaine's back is turned. Scars to rival Gwaine's own, gathered from a lifetime of looking for fights. He thinks about asking now, about discovering the truths behind each mark on Merlin's skin, cuts and burns and spoils of war, but it is not the time; there will be time for stories later, when they are not both hard and skin-hungry, when he isn’t quite so desperate to have whatever Merlin is willing to offer him.

His hands resume their battle with the knot keeping Merlin's trousers on, eventually coming out of it victorious and pulling the offending article of clothing from his body, so that by the time his tongue has finished dipping in and out of Merlin's navel, he is entirely naked and Gwaine cannot keep his hands and lips and tongue off of him, wanting to add his own – less permanent, maybe, but no less real – marks to the collection Merlin’s body already bears. Merlin pants under him, keening, his hips bucking into Gwaine's mouth and his hands clutching at the sheets and at Gwaine's hair and scrabbling for purchase at his shoulders.

Gwaine pauses, trying to slow things down a little, then pulls back completely as a voice in his head tells him that he cannot do this, cannot in clear conscious have sex with Merlin without telling him of the problems he has caused.

“Merlin, I –” he begins, and trails off as Merlin seems to take the brief break in contact as his cue to move, pushing aside rumpled bedding and lying back with his head on Gwaine's pillow. Gwaine follows him, because that is what Merlin expects and, more than anything, what he himself wants, but he’s no less determined to say his piece just because he is now straddling Merlin's hips. Merlin leans up to kiss him again as he works at undoing Gwaine's trousers himself because apparently he shares the same objection to clothing that Gwaine has most of the time.

“Merlin, no. Stop,” he manages to croak, and when that fails he just says it in one long, gasping word because Merlin has just defeated his trousers and his hands are cold but not too cold on Gwaine's cock. “ItoldLancetokissGwen.”

Merlin stops for a second and just stares at him, the blue of his irises and black of his pupils almost indistinguishable from one another, just dark against white. He snarls, “You're supposed to be making me forget,” before kissing him angrily, and even as Merlin bites at his bottom lip hard enough to draw blood Gwaine has never felt as wanted, as gloriously, desperately needed as he does right now. Merlin’s hands start moving again, and Gwaine finds that he is suddenly the one gasping for breath, reaching under his pillows for a bottle of oil and wriggling out of his trousers before opening it.

Merlin moves as if to roll over, and Gwaine stops him; it would be easier, perhaps, but he cannot imagine doing this any way other than face-to-face. Merlin, he is sure, has never done this before, no matter how well versed he seems to be in the mechanics of things – Gwaine wonders briefly if he has ever featured in Merlin's dreams, or if Merlin has never imagined sleeping with anyone other than Arthur, but such thoughts are really not what he wants at the moment so he forces them from his mind. He doesn't think he's ever been with a virgin before, thinks for a second that this is all a mistake, but Merlin is begging and writhing and oh-so-fuckable underneath him, legs spread, wriggling on to the fingers Gwaine is carefully sliding into him, and Gwaine cannot handle the idea of seeing all this in his mind so many times and not having it now that they've started.

He ignores all the problematic thoughts he is having – the awkwardness there will be in the morning between him and Merlin, whether this is going to be a one-time thing or if it will happen again, how he knows he closed his door behind him but cannot remember if he locked it, if anyone can hear the noises coming from his room and if they will realise that the second voice is Merlin's – and carries on, biting at Merlin's jaw and neck and shoulders as Merlin's nails carve grooves down his back. When he is sure Merlin is ready, he looks him in the eye, searching for any sign that this is too much, seeing nothing but lust, want, need, and then he is inside him.

He freezes when Merlin winces, eyes filling, and is about to stop entirely, back off and apologise and try to take back everything he’s just done, when Merlin threads one hand through Gwaine's hair and moves the other one down to touch himself, looking up at him with a waiting, wide-eyed innocence that makes Gwaine move because there is nothing else he can do. Merlin's breath is still hitching in discomfort but his right hand is moving from Gwaine's hair to his neck, tracing a path across his shoulder and down his arm to his hand, which he moves to replace his own at his cock.

Merlin's moans are more pleasure than pain as he wraps his legs tighter around Gwaine and Gwaine is almost there but he promised Merlin he'd make him forget and he knows that was a stupid promise to make, one he cannot hope to keep, though that doesn't mean he isn't going to try. He rolls his hips, twists his fingers, feels Merlin's hands draw blood where they grip his shoulders, hears him groan a word that may be “Gwaine” or “again” and either is fine with him because this is the most alive he has ever been. This is right, good, and Gwaine knows that even if he sleeps with other people after Merlin, even if he travels to the edge of the earth and beyond, he will never find anyone he loves as much, anyone he could love at all.

He closes his eyes as he brings his forehead down towards Merlin's, opening them only when he knows that all he will see are Merlin's eyes looking back at him, Merlin’s eyes as he fucks him, makes love to him, as he offers Gwaine everything without having any idea how much Gwaine wants it. A log pops loudly in the fire; the resulting flare is abnormally large, making Merlin's eyes flash gold as he comes, hot and wet between them, and the way he shudders and cries Gwaine's name as he does is enough to tip Gwaine into a blue-gold abyss that puts to shame every other lover he has ever had.

He comes back to himself gradually, carefully pulling out and lying next to Merlin, who is still gasping for breath, staring at him with eyes wide and fearful. Gwaine opens his mouth to ask what Merlin is scared of, desperately afraid himself of what the answer will be, that it will involve regrets and apologies and an _I never wanted this_ , but Merlin just murmurs something under his breath, his voice soft and sad and even though Gwaine doesn't understand the words, he is suddenly so tired that he decides any questions can wait until the morning.

X

When he wakes up, Gwaine is alone in his bed.

At first, he assumes it was just a dream and prays that if he said anything in his sleep, it was not clear enough for Merlin to work out what – _who_ – he was dreaming about. He stretches his arms as he sits up, feeling scabs on his shoulders pull, and throws back the sheets to find them far messier than he alone could have made them. The next few minutes are spent twisting in front of the mirror to see the marks Merlin left on his back. Merlin, who cried his name as he came. Merlin, who in one night has changed Gwaine's life for good.

Merlin, who is now gone.

Gwaine stops tracing the scratches that are the only proof on his body of what took place and crawls back between soiled sheets that he never, ever wants to change.

X

On hearing the knock at his door, his first thought is that it might be Merlin. His second is that it won't be.

And, of course, it is not; it is Arthur.

“Have you seen Merlin?” he demands, when Gwaine ignores his knocking. Gwaine stays silent and regrets it immediately because the prince opens the door and walks in. He seems mildly horrified to see one of his knights huddled naked under a sheet (not that Arthur can _see_ that he is naked, as only his head is visible, but the clothing strewn chaotically across the floor is probably evidence enough).

“Ah, Gwaine. Have you seen Merlin?” In his astonishment, Arthur settles, apparently, for repetition.

“Not bloody here, is he?” Gwaine cannot muster the energy to be polite. “Go to Gaius' and let me sleep.”

Arthur looks at him, around the room, and leaves.

X

The second time someone knocks on the door, Gwaine still hopes it is Merlin. He is disappointed, but at least this time the person is not Arthur; Arthur is the last person he wants to see. He doesn't particularly want to see Lancelot, either, but seeing as he is walking across the room and prodding at the Gwaine-lump on the bed, there isn't a whole lot of choice.

“Fuck off, Lance,” he mumbles, then squeaks and covers his crotch when his blankets are ripped away.

They are dropped almost instantly as Lance averts his eyes, blushing, though looking no less angry. “You need to get up, Gwaine, and go find Merlin.”

“If Merlin wanted me to know where he was, he'd still be here, or at least have left a note,” Gwaine snarls, turning his back to Lance and burying himself back under his covers. “Didn't tell him to leave.”

“You didn't tell him to stay, either.”

Gwaine wants to shout back that he couldn't, because Merlin was lying next to him when he fell asleep and gone before he awoke. He wants to, but doesn't; even if Merlin has told Lance what they did, he'd rather not have it known just how fucking miserable he is to be waking up without him. Instead, he ignores Lance entirely and pretends the whole day since he woke up has just been a nightmare. Hell, he’d even settle for the good parts of the last day to be a dream as well, if only it means that Merlin hasn’t rejected him as thoroughly as his leaving Gwaine alone and asleep shows he has.

“You are a bastard, Gwaine,” Lance accuses, his voice terrifyingly matter of fact, and Gwaine didn’t even know before now that Lancelot knew how to swear. “I could forgive you for that trick you pulled on me, the way you got me to go after Guinevere when everyone knows how happy she is with Arthur, because you were so worried about Merlin. That is why I do not get this. You are supposed to be his friend, and then you turn your back on him as soon as you find out his secret.” Gwaine hasn't uncovered his head, but he can feel Lance's glare on him. “I am not having it. Go tell Merlin you do not care. Lie if you have to; just get him to come back. And I swear, if you even think about telling anyone, I will kill you.”

Gwaine really doesn't understand any of this – apparently, though, he has wronged Merlin in some way, at least according to Lancelot – beyond the fact that it ends in a threat. He is not a man to take threats lying down, and this is showing signs of becoming a conversation too long and too difficult to have unclothed, so he rolls from his bed – on the opposite side to that which Lance is standing at – and pulls on his trousers. He hears Lance draw a shocked breath and thinks about calling him a prude for a moment until he realises that it is probably the scratches rather than his bare arse that prompted it.

“What the hell got you?” he asks in an appalled voice, and no one else Gwaine knows can jump from calmly furious to concerned so very quickly.

Gwaine finishes lacing his trousers and turns to face him. “Your best friend _got me_ , dickhead, or did he not tell you that bit?”

“Merlin attacked y-oh...” Lance trails off, putting two and two together and, despite his intelligence, actually getting four. Gwaine is no less surprised, because he was fairly sure this was something he already knew.

“Isn't that what you're yelling at me for?”

“No,” drawls Lance, “I am yelling at you because you know Merlin has magic and now he has had to leave the kingdom so you do not tell anyone and get him killed.”

Gwaine bursts out laughing; because Merlin being a sorcerer is the funniest thing he has heard in months, funny enough to make the morning seem just a little bit less terrible. He stops quickly: Lance isn't joining in. “You're serious? Merlin is a sorcerer? _Merlin_?”

“He said you knew. He said you saw his eyes, and something to do with the fire. He ran before you could wake up, before you could turn him in.”

“Eyes? Fire? I really have no...” but Gwaine does have an idea. He thinks of how the fire flared when they were – were what? Fucking? Making love? Sleeping together? He’d been so certain last night that this meant something, but Merlin leaving him has thrown all that away – and how Merlin's eyes flashed. He'd figured it was the first that caused it; understandably, as they were a little busy at the time. In fact, the fire flared just as Merlin – oh. _Oh_.

“The fire, yeah. His eyes flashed, and the fire caught. I didn't notice, actually. Little preoccupied at –” Gwaine tells himself to stop talking, because he might just have found out that Merlin is truly incredible at keeping secrets but that is really no excuse for sharing things he doesn't want anyone to know except for Merlin, who already does. “That oath he swore, in the tavern after...after he locked himself away?”

“You mean the thunder before and after he spoke? The way he invoked the elements and each one responded? That is _nothing_. He talks to dragons” – Gwaine thinks of the wyverns, which he only killed one of, and Arthur was in no state to fight them off – “moves things with his mind” – which explains a lot, really – “and the immortal army and pair of witches controlling it? Merlin did that. Well, Merlin and Gaius.” Lance sighs. “And you really did not have any idea, did you?”

“Not really, no. We'd better go and find him, hadn't we?” Gwaine finds a mostly clean shirt, not the one from the day before, on his floor, and tugs it over his head.

Lance looks at him speculatively. “You mean to say you do not care? You are not going to tell anyone? Because I would be just a little bit miffed if the person I was with had failed to mention they had a secret that could get me killed.”

“Nah. We all have the odd secret. Should have told me; I know all his others already. Well, I think I do. Probably. Bit hurt, maybe, but...” he pauses, trying to find a non-revealing way to phrase his thoughts. “But it's Merlin, you know? Camelot is his home, and Arthur his king. Merlin won't do anything to hurt them, and as long as I don't either – and I really don't intend to – he won't do anything to me. And I'm not going to tell anyone, either. Don't particularly want to see him burnt alive.”

That, Gwaine thinks, is the last thing he would do, ever, even if Merlin and he never do anything again, even if Merlin won't speak to him after last night; the sex must have had something to do with Merlin running, because the Merlin he knows – he tells himself firmly that he _does_ know Merlin, that he _loves_ Merlin, whether or not he knows every single thing about him – would have at least attempted an explanation under other circumstances.

“Besides,” he adds as an afterthought, “Was only once, anyway. Not likely to happen again.”

Mere seconds later, he is clutching his jaw and Lance is pinning him against the wall by his collar, his other hand raised to punch him again. “What the fuck, Lance?”

“Do not even think about trying it,” Lance says, and now, now he sounds furious and not calm at all, and yet that is still somehow less frightening than before. “Merlin is not going to be another of your one-night-stands. What the hell were you thinking, Gwaine? No, do not even answer that. I do _not_ want to know what happens in your mind, why you thought sleeping with Merlin was a good idea. I am just going to tell you that whatever he has planned for me if I mess around with Gwen again is going to look tame next to what will happen to you if you hurt him. And do not think this is any less real because the elements are not bearing witness.”

In that moment, Gwaine does the bravest thing he can remember doing; he looks Lancelot straight in the eye and gives up on his attempts of hiding how he has been feeling since he first woke up alone that morning. “Trust me, Lancelot; Merlin is _not_ going to be the one hurt at the end of this.”

Lance stares back, gaze discomfortingly intent, clearly seeing what Gwaine intends him to because he says, “Oh,” and takes a step back. “We'll just go get him back, then, I suppose.”

“Yeah. And if you could not mention any of this to anyone, I'd really sort of appreciate it.” Lance opens his mouth to say something, but Gwaine continues, his need to hide away again, to put this weakness back in a box where no one will ever see it making him sound almost as angry as Lance has been for the majority of this conversation. “No, Lance. Not anyone, not anything. Not Merlin, not Arthur, or Gwen or Leon or anyone. If I know of anyone hearing of this, I _will_ know it was you, because no one else knows.” And then he is pleading, somehow, not shouting anymore. “You can't, Lance, please. You _can't_.”

Fortunately, Lance takes pity on him, nodding slightly before leading him from the room.

X

As they walk, Lancelot tells Gwaine about Merlin's panicked arrival at his room in the early hours of the morning, gasping that Gwaine knew and was asleep for the moment but as soon as he woke up he'd go to Arthur –

“Arthur doesn't know?” Gwaine interjects. “He's kept it a secret from _him_ for this many years?”

Lancelot laughs. “Not the most observant of men, is Arthur, really – and you are not much better, Gwaine.” Gwaine blushes, because Lancelot has no idea just how much this is true.

Lance doesn't comment, just resumes the story. Gwaine, though, is thinking of the effort it must take to keep your greatest secret from someone you are with almost the entire day, someone you happen to love more than life itself. He can’t imagine doing that, how difficult and lonely it must be, how Merlin has been forced to lie to what is probably everyone other than Lance and Gaius – that Merlin ended up apprenticed to the only known sorcerer to survive the Purge cannot be a coincidence, and there’s no way Gaius doesn’t know. He can’t imagine how Merlin has lived like that without breaking, how he can be so warm and good and _happy_ , when anyone else would just be afraid.

He can’t think about this anymore, because just thinking about Merlin ever feeling as alone as Gwaine imagines his secret must make him is soul-destroying.

He tunes back in to hear Lance saying, “So, I made him promise not to go too far. He said he would wait in the woods while I found you and then you would fix this.” Lance glances at him, smiles briefly. “It took me longer than I thought it would; I had to search most of the city for you, because I was not expecting you to be sulking in bed like a child. But then, why would I? Merlin didn't mention the fact that you...and even if he had, everyone knows you have no problem with picking someone up and leaving before they wake.”

Gwaine winces, wanting to defend himself – not that he's all that sure he can, when the world’s biggest idiot has to know that Lance is right – but Lancelot carries on. “Really, what would you have done if he had been there when you woke up? Seeing as you do not want him to know you love him, you would not really have had a choice. He will know, and so will everyone else, if you do not treat him exactly like all your others.”

“Enough, Lancelot. Enough! You think I don't know how truly fucking terrible an idea last night was? You think I don't know how amazingly I've screwed up? You don't get a say in this.” He exhales loudly, then says in what he hopes is a calmer, less wildlife-terrifying voice, “You don't get a say, and nor do I. Merlin does. It was for him that...I mean, it was my idea, but he...I...whatever happens now, it's all up to him. Merlin's choices are the only things that matter here.”

He knows, he does, how _pathetic_ he sounds, but that's sort of the way things are. He will go along with what Merlin wants, no matter how much it hurts him, no matter how spineless doing so makes him feel, because it’s just about all he has to offer Merlin.

They walk the rest of the way in silence.

X

When they reach the place where Lance left Merlin in the woods, he is not there.

Not that Gwaine can tell this bit of the wood from any other, but Lancelot seems quite adamant. Gwaine instantly enters panic mode, his heart skipping and his mind running through all the possible, terrible, horrible things that could have happened to Merlin, his Merlin (except he isn't, not really, he's the prince's even if Arthur doesn't know it).

The recollection that Merlin has magic whispers through his mind and he calms, knowing that Merlin is capable of defending himself against most things; Merlin is not weak, doesn’t need Gwaine or anyone else to protect him. He will only have left willingly. Which is no better, because if Merlin is gone – and Merlin is definitely gone – and can only have left of his own accord, it means he didn't trust Gwaine not to tell anyone, didn't trust Lance to be able to persuade him.

He wheels on Lancelot, because if he heaps any more blame on himself he’ll end up a broken, catatonic mess right there on the forest floor. “You said you made him promise! Where is he, where the fucking hell is he?”

Instead of cowering, as most sane men would when faced with a spitting-mad Gwaine, Lancelot shouts back. “He did promise. And how am I supposed to know where he is? I was looking for you the whole morning. If he is gone, he has hours' head start on us. You just could not keep it in your trousers, could you, Gwaine, and now Merlin is gone and Camelot is almost defenceless.”

“Don't you fucking dare, Lance. I didn't know Merlin was going to run off while I was asleep. I didn't even realise I was likely to fall asleep, I was kind of thinking we'd–” that sentence stops midway, not because he doesn't want to talk about this with Lance (he's angry enough now not to care about that too much) but because something else he should already have worked out has become clear. “That fucking _bastard_! He put me to sleep! He didn't even wait for me to doze off before running.”

“And just how much worse is that than how you usually operate?” Lance retorts, settling in for another moralistic rant, when they hear a branch snap behind them and turn, both drawing swords.

A stricken Merlin is staring around a tree at them, clearly having hidden there at the sound of their approach. “You _told_ him that?” he asks, and the only word Gwaine can think of to describe his voice is _betrayed_. “You couldn't be happy telling everyone I have magic, you had to tell them everything else, too? Come on, then, Gwaine, who else knows? Who have you told that we fucked and that I have magic and that I'm in lo–”

Gwaine stops him then; he isn't going to let Lance know any more than he already does. “No one! I haven't told anyone anything. And I'm not going to, either.”

Merlin scoffs disbelievingly, and Gwaine is about to continue when Lance, surprisingly, jumps to his defence.

“He is telling the truth, Merlin, much as I hate to admit it.” Okay, he's sort of defending Gwaine, but then if Gwaine’s been a shitty enough friend that Merlin thinks he’d fuck him over like that, it’s not like he deserves anything more. “He had not left his room until I went to find him, had not seen anyone since you–” Lance breaks off, blushing; Gwaine does not hurry to fill the gap with the fact that he actually has seen Arthur this morning because it won't help his case much, and after a moment Lance picks up again. “He only told me because he thought that was what I was shouting at him for.”

Merlin looks nonplussed, his voice resuming its normal pitch and volume as he speaks to Lance. “Why on earth would you be shouting at him for that? I mean, you're my friend, but what I do is _not_ any of your business. And you, Gwaine,” Merlin is louder and shriller, _again_ , as he rounds on him. “I know sex is the most important thing in your life most of the time, but surely the realisation that the man you just shagged has magic should take precedence.”

“It might, yeah. If I'd actually reached that realisation. In case you didn't notice, I kind of had other things on my mind, what with my–” he remembers Lance's presence and stops short. “Does that always happen when you–” again, he stops for their audience, who is looking increasingly uncomfortable with the conversation, but Merlin answers anyway.

“I don't know! It's not like I've done that before.” Even with the ridiculous tenseness of the situation, Gwaine feels as spark of joy as Merlin confirms what he had thought: he was Merlin's first, and nothing will ever change that, even if Merlin is forever in love with Arthur and trusts Gwaine less than he does Morgana and it never happens again. “You think I'd have wanted to do it in the first place if I'd known?” Merlin asks, exasperated, so successfully quenching the spark that Gwaine wonders if he will ever be able to look at Merlin again with a crushing weight of guilt on his back.

“Don't worry, Merlin,” he sneers, knowing that he’s only lashing out at Merlin to hide just how much that question is killing him but completely unable to stop himself. “I'm not going to touch you again.” He has never had a partner tell him they regret sleeping with him, and the sick feeling in his stomach is uncontrollable. He knows, _knows_ , that Merlin consented (even if Gwaine wasn't spending every other minute asking if it was okay, Merlin never said no and did a lot that sure as hell seemed to be saying yes), but he was drunk, they both were, and Merlin's words now make it feel like rape.

Gwaine sheathes his sword, which he belatedly realises he is still holding, drawing a smaller knife from the other side of his belt. Before either Lance or Merlin can work out what he is doing, he traces it along the inside of his left wrist, hard enough to draw blood but not, he hopes, so deep as to do himself serious damage.

“I swear”, he says, holding his arm so that the blood runs down over his hand to drip from his fingertips, “Not to reveal any of your secrets, Merlin. Not what you are, or what we did and why. I swear.”

That said, he turns away from them both. “Now, I'm going back to the castle. You can follow or not, I don't care.” This is a lie, and he can tell from the way Lance shouts his name after him, reproachful and almost pitying, that he knows it too, but Merlin doesn't; Merlin with never know how he feels, and that is all that matters.

When he is sure they can no longer see him, Gwaine walks away from the track back to Camelot, trying not to leave a clear trail as he tramples through brambles and over fallen tree limbs until he feels the farthest from civilisation he has ever been. Leaning against a tree, he sheds his shirt and uses it to wrap his bleeding arm. Then he just sits, trying to control the fire of love-guilt-anger-self-hatred that is burning away his insides, until the sky darkens and he falls into an uneasy slumber.

X

Gwaine wakes, freezing, to birdsong and a steadily brightening dawn. He stumbles through the empty streets of the lower town and attempts to dodge servants lighting fires and sweeping hallways in the castle itself (although, of course, they have all seen him creeping back to his rooms around this hour many a time). He washes, contemplates going out to the training field early, and decides to get another hour or two of sleep first.

Merlin's belongings are gone from his room – he wonders vaguely if Merlin's door has only just been repaired, of if Merlin had continued to sleep on his floor purely for the comfort of another's presence – but the smell of him, them, lingers in his sheets.

He climbs into bed, telling himself things will look better in the morning.

X

This, he knows, is a lie, a most terribly huge one, as evidenced by the fact that someone is pounding at his door. Nobody he wants to talk to ever knocks on a door.

Unfortunately, since he failed to lock the door, when they get tired of knocking they just walk straight in. He ignores them, feigning sleep, and they sigh tiredly and leave. Gwaine never finds out who it was; the sigh is masculine and the footfalls heavy, but that could mean any of the circle apart from Gwen and Merlin (who he already knows it wasn't, because Merlin does not knock, and why would Merlin be coming to see him anyway?).

He thinks about locking the door, but remembers what Perce did to Merlin's and decides that even if he had the energy to get up it would hardly be worth the effort. If anyone needed him desperately, they'd only knock it down, and then he'd have nothing to hide behind when they left.

X

He sleeps through his next visitor, the only sign that there has been one the fresh bandage on his arm and a small bottle of something that smells vile. He drinks it all, ignoring the gurgle as it hits his empty stomach, and falls asleep hoping it was Lancelot who told Gaius about the cut because the thought that Merlin still cares enough to help after what Gwaine did to him just makes him feel worse.

X

The similarities between his and Merlin's behaviour hit him when, on his next return to consciousness, Lance is offering apologies to his closed door. He contemplates throwing something, but the only things to hand are pillows and his head is on them. He ponders briefly the possibility of someone offering to shag him senseless in a stupid attempt to help, them realises no one actually cares that much. Gwaine brings nothing to Camelot that the others don't do better: Percival is stronger, Leon wiser, Elyan funnier and Lance more noble. Merlin is magic and Gaius their healer. Arthur leads, and Gwen makes him happier, stronger, _better_.

Gwaine is just a whore.

He decides he will actually throw a pillow at the door, then pulls the sheets over his head and covers his ears.

X

Someone has clearly told Lance that Gwaine hasn't locked his door, because the bastard is now looking at him from a seat next to his bed rather than calling to him through a shut door. Gwaine wants to kill whoever it was, but that would require him to speak and move so he just lies there until Lance realises his eyes are open and starts to talk.

“This is, erm, awkward.” Gwaine blinks in a way that he hopes looks like _yeah, it is, so piss off_ , but apparently all it looks like is a blink. Talking is still too much like hard work, so he allows Lance to continue. “I have told everyone that you are ill. Most of them do not believe it; Merlin, obviously, knows it is a lie, and Gaius, because we sent him to check on your arm when we got back. Merlin was worried when you were not here.”

Gwaine winces and Lance takes this as a cue to elaborate. “He was worried for you, not because of you. You swore an oath, and no one thinks you are likely to go back on your word.” This is clearly supposed to make him feel better, but it doesn't. Gwaine took advantage of Merlin and the idiot still trusts him.

“But anyway, someone said they saw you sneaking back in the early morning, so we knew that you had reappeared. Gaius came and fixed up your arm – which was well done, by the way: most people make a mistake the first time they make a blood oath, particularly when they're as...as emotional as you were.” He stops again, because despite the fact that Gwaine has not said a word since he left them in the forest, this praise is apparently supposed to elicit a response.

It doesn't.

“Okay then. You do not want to talk to me. I brought you food, but I guess you will not eat it.” This is the first time Gwaine notices the trays sitting on various surfaces around the room, five of them. He has been hiding under his blankets for almost two days. Lance sighs. “You need to stop this, Gwaine. Yes, you made a mistake. You were drunk at the time, though, and even if it was wrong, Merlin swears you were only trying to help him.”

Again, Gwaine flinches at the idea of Merlin defending him. Again, Lancelot sighs at him.

“And you are not going to listen to me, are you? Merlin said you would be like this. He was going to come here himself, but I told him to let me try. I did not think you would want him seeing you sulking like a jilted boy. He will be here later, I suppose, if you want to get out of bed and tidy yourself up a bit?” Lance has only just noticed the ferocity with which Gwaine has been glaring at him for the last few sentences, and pulls an apologetic face. “Sorry, was I wrong? Is this all because he has not come to see you? That is even more pathetic, really. He wanted to come, he really did.”

His range of facial expressions have failed Gwaine – or, rather, Lance has failed at interpreting them – so there is nothing to do but speak.

The days of silence have left him croaky, but he likes to think his voice is no less ominous for that fact. “You will not let _him_ come here Lancelot, not at all. If I so much as hear his voice from outside, I _will_ tell Arthur you kissed Guinevere, and I'll tell Elyan too, then enjoy watching them rip you to pieces. Merlin is not allowed near me. And don't tell me I'm being ridiculous, because I promise you it is for his sake far more than it is for mine.”

This conveys the message far better than Gwaine's quite vocal (or so he'd thought, anyway) silences; Lancelot makes a silent, “oh,” then turns and leaves, shutting the door behind him. Gwaine returns to his hiding and wallowing in guilt.

X

Of course, he can only hide for so long.

He never really wanted to be a knight, never wanted the title, the power, the responsibility, but now that he has it he has a duty to his king (or prince, for the moment, because although he is a knight of Camelot, his loyalty is to Arthur rather than Uther and he knows it's the same for the others). So he forces himself from his bed, washes, and waits for his next visitor, picking at the still edible food from his meal trays. When, eventually, there is a knock at the door, he rather startles them by asking who it is instead of ignoring it.

“Me,” replies Leon's voice. “May I come in?”

Gwaine opens the door and grunts in a permissive way. Leon, far better at comprehending non-verbal cues than Lance, enters, shuts the door behind him and takes a seat (Lance would only have stared in confusion).

“A slightly scared Lancelot has informed me that you are refusing to leave your bed, which I gather to be an exaggeration.” Leon seems entirely unperturbed by the fact that Gwaine has neither taken a seat nor looked at him since he entered the room. “He also said that I am to assist him in making sure that Merlin does not under any circumstances come to see you, and when I asked why he said only that you were being a fool.”

Leon shakes his head. “For reasons I do not fully comprehend, I agreed to help him, at which point he stopped looking quite so frightened and requested that I come here to persuade you to leave your bed. Quite how he thought I would be able to do so, without knowing the reason for your inexplicable moodiness, I am not sure.”

Gwaine is uncertain how to respond to this speech, so he merely nods. Again demonstrating how much smarter than Lance he is, Leon continues. “I gather from the fact that you are currently standing that my poor attempts at persuasion are not required.” This time Gwaine shakes his head. “Good. I shall see you at training tomorrow. I will not be forced to deal with Lancelot and Prince Arthur without assistance for another day. Incidentally, I don't suppose you can tell me why Lancelot has taken to wincing whenever Elyan is in the vicinity? No, I didn't think you would. Until tomorrow, then, Sir Gwaine.”

He stands and leaves the room. Gwaine is rather startled by his efficiency, and only realises that his lack of immediate refusal has been taken as implicit agreement when it is too late to do anything about it.

Once again, Gwaine is glad to be on Arthur's side rather than anyone else's. It is far better to be allies with such formidable people than enemies.

X

The next day dawns bright and uncomfortable. Having spent far too much time asleep lately, Gwaine is alert considerably earlier than he would like to be. He is fully dressed and has done much to improve the cleanliness of his room when there is a gentle tapping at his door.

“Yes?” he asks, opening it. Lancelot.

“Leon told me you had agreed to come to training today. He seemed worried that you would change your mind, so he sent me to make sure you had not.” Lance laughs uneasily, in an _I'd rather be anywhere else on earth right now_ way. “Are we going?”

Gwaine answers by walking out the door.

“That would be a yes, then, I take it. You should really talk to Merlin.” Gwaine turns to face him, raising an eyebrow in his best impression of a disapproving Gaius. “Or not, I suppose. That works just as well. I just think you should hear what he has to say, because I can promise you, you are not thinking the same thing.”

He shuts up when he realises Gwaine has carried on walking without him.

X

Training is far less awkward than Gwaine was expecting it to be.

No one mentions the mysterious illness that has left him bed-bound for the last three days, the purpling bruise just visible through his beard, or the way he only walks off when Merlin tries to talk to him, although he knows at least Arthur and Lance clocked it, and probably Gwen as well (seeing as she was sitting next to Merlin at the time, he would be worried if she hadn't). Lancelot is keeping his distance from Gwaine, for which he is extremely grateful; although he does actually like the guy (contrary to what his hostile behaviour of late suggests), if he has to endure another excruciating conversation with him, he will be forced to kill someone.

In fact, the whole day exceeds his expectations. After a couple of hours of basic drills, Uther, from his seat on the sidelines, orders Arthur to have his “common rabble” (for some reason, this includes Leon, who has apparently lost noble status in the king's eyes purely because he was with Arthur rather than imprisoned when Morgana's army was defeated) fight against the other knights.

Despite being outnumbered by at least two to one, they win with very little difficulty. So little difficulty that Gwaine is slightly suspicious, particularly when, in the break between knocking out one opponent with the pommel of his sword and turning to face the next, he sees a particularly bulky chap fighting Arthur trip over a stone he is sure appeared from nowhere.

On the other hand, though, Merlin is one of Arthur's men, even if he isn't officially recognised as such, so there is no reason for him not to help, so long as he isn't obvious enough about it to get caught.

Afterwards, Arthur smiles proudly at them and offers to pay for all drinks that night. Everyone accepts, then turns to Gwaine, who has barely spoken all day.

“Well,” says Percival, “are you coming or not?”

Gwaine glances from Merlin to Lance, and then back again. Sobriety and abstinence, he thinks, is the way to go. “No, thanks. Still not feeling too great.”

Despite the fact that they almost all know his recent illness is a total fabrication, they nod and pretend to believe him.

He spends the rest of the evening sitting by the unlit fireplace in his room, trying to decide whether the look on Merlin's face was one of disappointment or relief, and much of the night tossing and turning in his bed as he tries to work out which he would prefer it to have been.

X

Merlin, Gwaine can tell, is getting increasingly annoyed at being ignored. Lancelot is still telling him that if he would just _talk_ to Merlin, the whole mess could be sorted out. Gwaine laughs each time he says it, and wants to ask how talking is ever going to make okay the fact that he got his best friend drunk and then slept with him in an attempt to make said best friend forget about being in love with someone he will never have, only to have him knock him unconscious, flee the city, and then when tracked down say that he wishes he'd never done it.

He doesn't, though, because Lance is only trying to help.

However, Gwaine does not realise just how annoyed Merlin is until he has spent almost a month successfully brushing off his every attempt at starting a conversation, and one afternoon finds his feet walking, quite against his will, to the abandoned room in which Arthur and Gwen have their meetings. After several minutes of trying to change direction, stop, or regain even a modicum of control, he gives up and goes with it.

He is entirely unsurprised to find Lancelot standing outside the door.

“It worked, then. Merlin was not sure if it would.” Gwaine's feet have, thankfully, allowed him to stop. “He would much prefer you enter the room of your own accord, but he will make you if he has to. Which do you want?”

“You are a _dead_ man, Lancelot,” he mutters in reply, before choosing the far more dignified option of opening the door and walking in under his own steam.

The door closes as soon as he lets go of it, and he hears the lock click when it shuts. He turns away from it in weary resignation and says in a faux-bright voice, “Merlin! What can I do for you today?”

“You can listen, for one, and then respond like a rational adult, if that isn't too much to ask? Take a seat.” Merlin is sitting in a comfortable chair by the fire, which seems to be burning quite happily despite there being no wood in the grate, and points to a similar chair opposite him.

“And what if I don't want to sit? Are you going to make me do that as well?” Rather than reply, Merlin just lets his eyes flash gold (Gwaine wonders just how he managed to account such an unnatural colour to the reflection of the fire) and Gwaine's feet start walking on their own again. He tries to say something, anything, but finds he can't, not until he is sitting down and facing Merlin. “Is this your revenge, then?” he asks bitterly. “My punishment for what I did to you?”

Merlin sighs in response. “No, Gwaine, this is just me doing what I have to do to get you to talk to me.”

“Maybe I don't want to talk to you. You think of that?”

“Yes, that has crossed my mind once or twice in the last few weeks. But Lancelot tells me you're...labouring under a false impression. He says you're avoiding me – and don't even consider denying it, Gwaine, because you so clearly are, everyone can see it. That's not the important bit, anyway. He says you're avoiding me, not because we had sex, but because you think I didn't want to.” Merlin stops and waits expectantly.

“You mean you did? I got you drunk, Merlin, and then I propositioned you. You never would have said yes if you weren't.” Gwaine wants to stand and pace, but he doesn't know that Merlin won't stop him and so settles for pulling at his hair instead.

“And you never would have suggested it if _you_ weren't.” Merlin's voice is louder, less calm than when he started the conversation, although he still sounds far too much in control for Gwaine's peace of mind.

“Yeah, well, I didn't knock you out so I could sneak off. You didn't wake up alone, no idea where I was, then have a friend come in and yell at you for something you have no idea about,” Gwaine shouts, then imagines Lance, outside the room, wincing on his behalf, and forces himself to be quieter. “You didn't have to track me down to tell me you don't care about whatever secrets I'm keeping from you, only to have me tell you that I wish it had never happened. How, exactly, Merlin, was I supposed to interpret that?”

Merlin nods, accepting the point. “I'm sorry for that. Sorry I put you to sleep and then left. I shouldn't have; I should have found out what you knew and what you were going to do about it. But you understand, don't you?” When Gwaine says, does, nothing, he repeats himself. “ _Don't you_ , Gwaine? I have this secret, have had it my entire life, and if it gets out I'm dead. And not just me: my mother, Gaius, Lancelot. Anyone who knows will die, anyone who knows and has said nothing. And now you. Can you really not see why I did what I did? If I wasn't around, there was no proof. I could have waited, and then escaped if you'd said something. But then no one could have denied it, and they'd all be arrested and executed.”

The fact that this makes sense does not make it any less painful to hear. “Okay, I get that. Very noble, you wanted to protect them. But you should have trusted me. Ignore the fact that I didn't even work it out” – and Gwaine is more than a little ashamed of his obliviousness, even if he has been around far less time than plenty of people who have no clue whatsoever – “why would you think I'd tell anyone?”

“I...I don't know, Gwaine, I just don't. I was wrong. Are you happy now? I was drunk, I had just slept with one of my best friends: it's really not a situation I know how to deal with. It just seemed so much worse than if you'd found out some other way. Particularly seeing as you felt the need to be honest _midway_ _through_ , and my secret is so much bigger. It felt like I had betrayed you. _I_ felt like I'd betrayed you.”

Gwaine doesn't know how to respond to this, so he just returns to the most important point. “And you said you regretted it? Suppose I accept the rest of your thinking” – and, he realises as he says this, he does, because it is so typically Merlin to feel like he has done something wrong, even if he hasn't – “what was I supposed to think other than that I'd done something you didn't want me to?”

“Maybe that I didn't want you to find out? Not because I don't trust you, but because I don't want _anyone_ to find out. You're on the list, now, of people whose lives depend on my ability to lie. Enough people have died because of me.” There is enough weight in this sentence that Gwaine doesn't think it's just Merlin taking the blame; there is at least one person, someone Merlin cared about, who died because they knew what Merlin was, and Gwaine knows then and there that he will die himself before he lets it happen again.

“It wasn't sleeping with you that I regretted, Gwaine.” Merlin blushes, and for the first time seems unrehearsed, fumbling for words. “That was...”

“Distracting?” Gwaine offers.

Merlin laughs, sort of. “I was going for fantastic, actually, but if you're happy with distracting, that's fine with me.” His face turns serious again, intense, and he leans forward. “This is all I can say, Gwaine. I messed up. I shouldn't have left, and I shouldn't have said what I did without explanation. I'm sorry. But I wanted it, as much as you did. You didn't force me to do anything. There are two, maybe three people alive today who can make me do something I don't want to, and you aren't one of them. I promise.”

Gwaine nods. “Okay. You could have stopped me. I believe you.” He does, but it was still a terrible idea. He smiles anyway, though, because this is Merlin, his best friend, first friend, and let's not forget the fact that oh, yeah, he's in love with him.

It's Merlin, and he has missed him.

“Are we friends again now?” Merlin asks, hopeful, almost painfully so, and the only things Gwaine can do is agree. Then he hugs him, and Gwaine hugs back, ignoring the way his insides squirm at the contact. They both pretend that it's all solved, that everything is back to the way it was, the way it always should have been, but it isn't; they have neither asked nor answered the most important question.

Do they do it again?

X

Being friends with Merlin after they have slept together is almost as hard as not being friends with him; at least when they weren't talking, Gwaine was too busy feeling guilty and self-pitying to notice how awkward things were. Now that they are, Merlin is there, always there, when Gwaine is at training, eating meals with the others, looking for ways to fill his spare time.

Merlin is there, and it's good, because if he ever wants someone to talk to, something to do, he just has to turn around and ask. At the same time, it's really not, though, because Gwaine has no idea how to act around him, has no idea where the boundaries are.

He has slept with many people and, since he's spent so long in one place lately, seen many of them in the days and weeks afterwards, but none of them were his friends first, or ever.

He and Merlin do not touch except when unavoidable – Gwaine never knew how tactile a person he is until the pats on the back, half hugs, friendly jostling elbows are gone and he is left craving warm skin against his own – and they do not talk about it, any of it, sex, the fact that Merlin loves Arthur, the almost month they did not speak.

Gwaine goes out with the knights again, though nowhere near as frequently as he used to, and when he does he has one drink, maybe two, then leaves if he can, stays and drinks water if he can't. The one evening he leaves with a girl – dark haired, fair-skinned and far more slender than is healthy (brown eyes, though, so not all that similar) – he wakes in the middle of the night with the intention of slipping from her bed and to his own only to find that he cannot bring himself to do so, and thus has to endure stilted conversation the morning after.

From then on, he ignores any offers made to him, spending each night alone in his bed. Lance looks on approvingly each time he exits the tavern early and unaccompanied, like he is doing something right, something good for Merlin; he seems to think they are together, that after Gwaine and Merlin talked things over they are a couple.

Gwaine wishes they were. He prays for it, to the gods of the Old Religion, even though he knows it is forbidden to do so, and that the official decree is that they don't exist. Even if the decree is wrong, they are not his gods and will not grant his wish. Merlin is theirs, their child, by blood and magic if not by being raised in the faith

If anyone is getting his wish granted, it is Merlin, and Gwaine knows they are not wishing for the same thing.

X

One bright blue day, as the year makes its way from spring to summer, rather than immediately rushing off after Arthur when training is done, Merlin lingers to ask Gwaine why he no longer drags him out to drink with them all. Gwaine, having no clue at all what to say, merely looks at him.

“Well, okay, yes,” Merlin replies, if one can be said to reply to a look alone. “I can see why that might be a reason. But you _can't_ make me do anything and I _won't_ make you do anything. We're both perfectly capable of getting a drink together without doing something we shouldn't.”

When Gwaine still doesn't speak, he rolls his eyes. “Look, I'll make an oath of it, if you want? The same as before, on the elements. I won't use magic on you, ever, unless it is to protect you, myself, or someone important to one or both of us. I swe–”

Before he can realise what he is doing, Gwaine has stepped closer to Merlin than he has since they hugged and made up weeks ago, clapping a hand over his mouth before he can actually invoke anything.

“That's enough of that, I think,” he says, hoping the pounding of his heart is not audible in his calm words; Merlin has magic for a reason, and it is not to make trivial oaths to his friends. Gwaine will not let him swear to anything he doesn’t know for certain that Merlin can keep, doesn’t know for certain that he actually _wants_ Merlin to be able to keep, particularly not when he has no idea of the consequences of breaking it. “How about we just pretend to be normal for a bit, okay? No more magical oaths, please, or blood ones for that matter.”

He waits until Merlin nods before removing his hand and taking a decent step back, the feeling of Merlin's lips still tingling on his palm. “You wouldn't, anyway, you're too good. And if you really want to drink with us all, you can. Don't need to ask. Lance'll be glad, the others too. You've been missed.”

Permission granted, Merlin grins and tells Gwaine he'll see him outside his rooms that evening. Gwaine nods, removing his sword from where it is planted in the ground beside him (it took some time, but Arthur has finally succeeded in convincing him that just throwing his sword on the ground after a fight is neither good for the blade nor conducive to picking it back up again with any sort of speed if required to do so) and begins to leave. He barely catches Merlin's voice as he calls his name after him, and stops, not turning, but tilting his head slightly to show he is listening.

Merlin's voice is low, but carries well – Gwaine thinks it is magic, and pictures how they must look to others, were there anyone around. Himself, standing stock still, awaiting whatever will be said to him. Merlin a good distance away, dressed as a mere servant but eyes glinting with the power of ages for anyone to see.

For the first time since discovering Merlin's magic, Gwaine is a little afraid of him.

“You should have let me make that oath,” he says, with an oddly dangerous undertone. “I can make you do anything, _anything_ , Gwaine. If I try hard enough, I can probably make you enjoy it, too.”

Gwaine resumes walking before the words “Is that a promise?” can escape from his tongue, absolutely clueless as to where it was he was planning to go. He has to get away, though; anything he says or does now he will only regret, and he isn't one for repeating his mistakes.

X

It is a close thing, though, that night.

X

Gwaine has never seen anyone drink so much in such a short space of time as Merlin does that night, and he sort of suspects the only reason Merlin is still conscious is his magic. This, in itself, would be fine, because even in the face of the easy, drunken stupidity of others, Gwaine's resolve is still strong; he, to his surprise, likes sobriety.

Yes, okay, he misses the level of intoxication where everything is funny and the real world seems so very, very far away. But he likes knowing where he wakes up in the morning and how he got there, likes being in control, knowing the whole series of events rather than many scattered moments, likes not having a pounding headache almost every morning.

However, Merlin is not only completely blathered; he is also flirting. With everyone, and rather badly, too, most in the form of exquisitely awful puns that would have had the old, alcoholic Gwaine in stitches but now succeed only in making him wince and hope he has never sounded like this himself.

Merlin tells Lancelot he has magic hands, but his mouth is more so, and Leon he would be happy to let him lie on him. Percival, he announces loudly, more to the room as a whole than to the man in question, he would do in a red-hot second except he thinks he might get broken. He asks Elyan if he can play with his swords – Gwaine is mildly alarmed at the pluralisation, before realising this is an actual question and Merlin is quite determined to go to the forge right this minute.

In the nick of time, a barmaid, the youngest sister again, who Gwaine now knows (or possibly already knew and now just remembers) is called Bonnie, shoves another tankard under Merlin's nose and he changes his mind. “Another time, Elyan,” he says with a wink (probably supposed to be suggestive, but looking only like an outward symptom of some sort of mental affliction), then proceeds to tell poor Bonnie she has truly beautiful knockers.

She returns to behind the bar rather abruptly and Gwaine runs after her. “Please,” he begs, “He didn't mean it. Don't tell your father.” He has met the girls' father once or twice, and knows him to be perfectly friendly, usually, but he has also seen the men who harass his daughters on the job – lying bruised and bloody in the streets.

Bonnie laughs, tossing blonde hair over her shoulder, and leans across the bar towards him: Gwaine tries to keep his eyes averted from her breasts, despite the excellent view she is currently offering him, because it would hardly do to stare whilst apologising for Merlin's comments.

“I'll let it go, just this once,” she replies, straightening up slightly, but still not enough that Gwaine can allow himself to look down. “You should keep an eye on him, though; I've never seen him this drunk, and Beatrice” – she nods towards her eldest sister, a brunette, but otherwise very similar in appearance – “tends not to be quite so forgiving.”

“Thanks,” he says sincerely.

She nods, grabbing his left arm before he can return to the table. “You've changed, Sir Gwaine,” she murmurs softly, her hand smoothing the wrinkles from his shirtsleeve. “You were never this much of a gentleman when you first came here. Are they worth it?” At his confused frown, she continues. “The one you've made all this effort for. Do they deserve it?”

He glances back at Merlin and the others before answering. “Bonnie, love, I really don't know what you're talking about.”

“I'm sure,” she smirks. “Away with you, then, if you aren't going to tell me anything.”

Deciding that the barmaids here are nowhere near as innocent as he first though they were, Gwaine rejoins the group in time to prevent a castle cook from clouting Merlin across the back of the head when he asks her if she wants a bun putting in her oven. “Sorry,” he says, as she sneers and walks away. A couple of minutes later he thinks that perhaps he should have let her do it; Merlin is still going strong, and Gwaine is trying to hide from the voice telling him Merlin has yet to say anything to him.

He loses sight of Merlin for a moment, only to see him pop up by a table still within hearing distance (and he really hopes Merlin had the sense to walk there rather than use magic) and inform the group of stable hands sitting there that he is the very definition of hung like a horse. Gwaine snorts – Merlin is a perfectly good size, yes, but he has seen bigger, and everyone knows size is irrelevant if one is lacking skill – apparently louder than he would have liked because Merlin skips (yes, skips, despite the fact that he causes accidents just by walking when sober) back to him.

“Aww, don't be jealous, sweetie,” he slurs, “It's you I'm going home with,” and plants a sloppy kiss somewhere in the region of Gwaine's left eye before surveying the room for someone else to upset.

Gwaine rounds on Lancelot, who is finding the entire thing disproportionately funny. “Stop sniggering and help me get him out of here, you bastard.”

Lance just laughs more. “Are you sure you have room for a third? I would not want to deprive you of Merlin's magic mouth, after all.”

“He's not staying with me, idiot. To yours, or back to his.”

Lance stops laughing very abruptly, looking terrified at the thought of being the only one responsible for a Merlin this drunk, but reluctantly agrees to help return him to his own room in Gaius' chambers.

By the time Merlin is tucked shoeless into his own bed, he is crying softly. Gwaine feels a right bastard for leaving him there alone, but leave him he does, because staying is not an option he would feel right in taking.

He thinks back to Bonnie's question and wonders. He doesn't think he's changed for Merlin, but maybe it's because of him, and if he really is so stupidly besotted that he has changed his whole character, he has to hope that the answer is yes, Merlin does deserve it.

(Except right now he sort of thinks it isn't).

X

Merlin spends the following day clutching his head and trailing after Arthur looking a little like a kicked puppy. Gwaine, having been in the same position many a time (the hangover, not the puppy-eyed stalking, or so he desperately hopes), would be sympathetic, if it weren't for the fact that he sort of thinks Merlin deserves it, just a little; the flirting was so clearly for his benefit.

Still, he goes by Gaius' when he has a moment, only to discover that the old physician is refusing to give anyone anything for hangovers, having been awoken by “Three blundering wastrels and perhaps having to live with the headaches will teach you all not to do it again!”

If he was the sort of man who did copious apologies and begging for forgiveness, Gwaine would have done so then, largely because he feels Merlin's current state is at least partially his fault, but he isn't, so he just nods and leaves.

X

His hope that Merlin takes this to be a lesson turns out to be futile. Barely a week later, Gwaine finds his feet taking him once again to Arthur and Gwen's room. Neither Merlin nor Lance is standing outside so, not sure what else to do, he raps on the door, imploring any being that may be listening that he isn't about to disturb the future king and queen doing something he really doesn't want to witness them doing. It opens and, to his relief, he finds only Merlin inside.

Dusting, of all things.

“Gwaine,” he smiles innocently, like he hasn't kept Gwaine up for nights wondering what would have happened if he'd brought him home that evening instead of leaving him in his own room. “Sorry, I set you walking here then forgot to keep track of how close you were. Give me a hand?”

This is so much like before everything that happened – Gwaine helping Merlin with his work, at least; the bit where he is being dragged about by magic is still pretty new to him – that he complies without thinking; picking up things from the floor, arranging knick-knacks, neatening the bed (surely when someone is as madly in love as Gwen and Arthur are, they should really be waiting until after they get married: one illegitimate child trying to usurp/kill the king and rightful heir is more than enough for Gwaine's liking).

It is only once Merlin has dusted every possible surface and Gwaine has straightened the Pendragon-red pillows (the colour of most pillows, rugs, cloaks, blankets, wall-hangings and, indeed, fabrics in general in the castle. It took Gwaine ages to track down blue bedding, not because he particularly likes it as a colour, but just because _it isn't red_ ) and are lurking in the corridor outside that Gwaine says, “You know, it'd be a lot easier to ask me for help, and smarter, than it is to drag me here.”

Merlin's quirked eyebrow lets Gwaine know just _how_ easy it is for Merlin to treat him like an over-sized puppet, but he still apologises. “Right, sorry. Didn't know if you'd want to help, after.” He pauses, as if trying to find the best way to phrase his thoughts. “I mean, we're friends again, aren't we, but you're still doing all you can not to be alone with me. I wasn't sure how you'd take me asking you to meet me in a place we all know is used for secret trysts.”

“S'pose so, yeah. Still, next time, ask, please, mate. Not really a fan of my feet walking places without my say so.”

Merlin consents a little too quickly for Gwaine to believe he won't just do it again whenever he wants to, but he lets it go. They lapse into a surprisingly comfortable silence until Gwen appears, trying to be sneaky, and Arthur, walking like he owns the place – legitimately, Gwaine concedes, since he almost does – then faltering slightly at the sight of Gwaine.

“ _Mer_ lin,” he says reproachfully. “I believe I asked you for secrecy. Could you please explain what _he_ is doing here again?”

Gwaine, fairly certain he doesn't deserve the tone of voice Arthur is employing, answers before Merlin can. “Just keeping him company, your highness. Problem with that? Besides, everyone knows you're sneaking off to _meet with_ Gwen, and half of us know where. Not much of a secret, is it, when the only thing we aren't sure about is when?”

For a second, Gwaine thinks his words with land him on stable-cleaning duty for a week, but all the prince does is look at him speculatively before continuing on his way.

Merlin waits until they hear the lock click before saying, “you do know I'm coming out with you tonight, don't you?”

Gwaine just sighs, and they sit silently. Again.

X

This time, at least Merlin seems to have decided against flirting with everyone in sight. Gwaine is relieved, because he knows it was Merlin's attempt to make him jealous and really doesn't want him to find out how well he succeeded, horrible though his lines were.

The six of them are seated at a table within shouting distance of the bar but not so close that Gwaine cannot evade Bonnie's attempts to catch his eye. Everything seems remarkably fine until Elyan comments on how little time he has to spend with his sister of late, and that they really should have rescheduled the hunting trip that was cancelled when Merlin was missing and Gwaine ill. At this, Merlin flinches, and the foot that Gwaine had noticed sliding up and down his calf but hadn't really _noticed_ stops moving.

Merlin checks the tables around them, apparently deciding that no one is listening in because he says, “Well, I wasn't supposed to let anyone know, but Gwaine here” – Gwaine takes a sharp breath, not sure what Merlin is planning to say. Merlin ignores him, although his foot resumes its motion, and if Gwaine wasn't so bloody on edge he'd find it comforting – “Gwaine pointed out that it isn't much of a secret anyway. The hunting trip was just a ruse to get Gwen out of the city so Arthur could look for a ring without her knowing.”

In the flurry of conversation this prompts, no one else notices Lance go pale and mutter an excuse about having to leave, urgently, for no reason whatsoever. Gwaine kicks Merlin's foot away, pretending not to hear him yelp and or feel the pang of guilt that follows, and leaps up to go after Lance.

He finds him standing in the shadows at the mouth of an alley just down from the tavern, leaning against a wall and looking for all the world like he is imagining himself to be somewhere else. “Lance, mate, you alright?”

He laughs without humour at the incredulous look he gets in response to this truly stupid question. “No, I suppose not. Shit, mate. Merlin is being a twat today.”

There are no words for the distraught look Lancelot has, even though his eyes are dry, no jokes that will make this any better, so Gwaine just reaches out and hugs him, expecting Lance to stand there making it awkward, but he doesn't; he hugs back, shaking. Gwaine feels monstrous again, because he has privately vowed not to do anything to ruin Arthur's happiness for Merlin's sake, so there is nothing he can do to make this any better for Lance.

When Lance's shaking subsides and his mask of control has been restored, Gwaine walks him back to his room then returns to the tavern to see what other havoc Merlin has managed to wreak in his absence.

X

Fortunately, all Merlin has done is drink. Nowhere near as much as last time, certainly, but enough that he doesn't protest when Gwaine grabs his upper arm tightly and yanks him from his stool.

“Gwaine! Look who's back, everyone, it's Gwaine. Isn't it just fantastic, Gwaine? Aren't we just so happy for them, Gwaine, so happy, happy, _happy_ for them?” Merlin picks up a half-full tankard from the table, probably not his own, and raises it for a toast. Gwaine releases his arm in order to remove it and claps him on the back, a little harder than is necessary.

“Actually, Merlin, I'd say you're just drunk. And stop saying my name like that.” To Leon, he adds, “I'll take him back to his. Will you check on Lance before you turn in?” Leon nods, grimacing, and Gwaine hauls a still cheering Merlin out the door.

Rather than taking him straight back, however, he goes by the water pumps outside the castle and holds Merlin's head under one. When he is thoroughly sodden, coughing and spluttering, he lets him go.

“Has that sobered you up a bit, idiot?” Merlin blinks at him pitifully, water dripping from his hair and down his face, droplets clinging to impressively long eyelashes. “That was a seriously shitty thing you did, mate.”

Instead of looking apologetic, or repentant, or anything else Gwaine thinks appropriate, Merlin just looks mad. “Oh, yeah? He knew it was going to happen.” Gwaine would point out the difference between knowing something and having it rubbed in your face so cruelly , but Merlin barely pauses for breath. “Besides, he had the almighty Gwaine to go comfort him, didn't he? Did you fuck him too, Gwaine? Offer to make him forget? Did you try make it all go away, and only make it so many times worse instead?”

Gwaine wishes he could hate him for that, wants to tell him he wouldn't even consider it for anyone else, only he can't, because Merlin has no idea how much more important he is. He wants to hit him, wants to storm off, leaving him cold and dripping and alone, but he doesn't because Merlin is crying now, huge, wracking sobs that echo off the walls of Gwaine's heart. So Gwaine just holds him, murmuring, “I know,” when Merlin says that he only wanted to know that someone else was hurting as much as him.

He cannot bring himself to abandon Merlin in this state, so he takes him back to his own room, sitting him in a chair before the fire. He then proceeds to remove his boots and gently towel his hair. “Up,” he says softly, when Merlin is dry enough not to catch a cold, then leads him by the hand to the bed. “In.”

Merlin obeys, childlike, looking so small in the big bed when Gwaine tucks him in, and seems reluctant to release his hold on Gwaine's hand. “Stay with me?” he asks. “Just to sleep, please?”

Gwaine extricates his hand, smoothing it over Merlin's hair once before stepping back. “No, Merlin,” he murmurs, voice no less firm for all that it is sad; he could so easily slip between the sheets next to this soft, sad Merlin and hold him until the tears stop and they fall asleep, but slipping out when he awakes with an erection, limbs tangled together with Merlin's, would be more than impossible.

He curls up under a blanket on the patch of floor that was once Merlin's regular sleeping place, trying not to hear Merlin's snuffling sobs.

X

Merlin, for a short while, is genuinely contrite. He apologies to Lance in a halting, broken fashion, knowing that it won't make matters any better. He asks Gwaine to stay with him as he does so, and Gwaine does, though he has no idea why Merlin would want him to.

Lance tells him, softly, when Merlin has gone, that it was only because of Gwaine that Merlin felt the need to voice the apology. Merlin is perfectly capable of standing against a dragon, not knowing whether or not he will be able to control it, or of teasing the crown prince in the early morning, but he chooses to ignore that Lancelot and Arthur are in love with the same girl.

“It is like this,” Lance says. “He is sorry, and I know he is sorry, and he knows I know. Why should he need to say it? But you, Gwaine, you do not know. You are mostly honest: if you think something, you say it, unless you have a very good reason not to, and the majority of what you say you mean exactly the way you say it.” Lance looks at him like this explanation is supposed to be enough, then continues when it is clear that it is not. “Merlin is trying to impress you, Gwaine. He just does not know how.”

Gwaine, personally, thinks that what Merlin is doing is a long way from trying to impress him, unless the impression he is trying to create is insanity, but he doesn't say so; saying so would mean prolonging the conversation (it occurs to him that while the end of Lance's speech was far from factual, his understanding of Gwaine's character is fairly accurate).

Arthur is also given an apology, although Merlin has to begin by explaining just what it is he is sorry for. Rather than Merlin asking for an accompaniment this time, Gwaine demands to be present. He would have been happy to let Merlin speak to Lancelot alone, because Lance (he knows from experience) forgives too quickly, but Arthur has a tendency to occasionally overreact like the spoilt little rich boy Gwaine had expected him to be, before he actually got to know him.

They agree to wait until early afternoon, when Arthur is ensconced in his room with the piles of paperwork that are beyond his father's capabilities and the sharpest thing handy will be the fork on the lunch platter Merlin has yet to clear away. Merlin is already present when Gwaine arrives, not knocking before entering (bad manners, it seems, are contagious – not, of course, that Gwaine's were all that fantastic to begin with).

“Sir Gwaine,” Arthur states, the title acting as a reprimand. “What can I do for you today?”

That he will be required to explain his sudden appearance is, foolishly, not something Gwaine has considered. Most auspiciously, Merlin apparently has prepared for it. “He's here for me. I'm...I have something I need to confess to, and Gwaine is here as...moral support, I suppose.”

Arthur mulls this over for a moment while Gwaine leans against the wall in a relaxed way that he hopes looks inconspicuous, arms crossed, muscles loose enough that he can spring into action immediately if required. Arthur sits up straighter in his chair, stretching his legs out under the table, and Merlin fidgets, a lot, shuffling from one foot to the other and twisting his fingers together like the actions for childhood nursery rhymes. “Very well,” Arthur says eventually, imperiously. “Confess.”

Merlin does so, eyes darting between Gwaine and the prince as he explains how he went out with the knights and drank slightly more than he intended to. “It really wasn't Gwaine's fault,” he says earnestly, “It was my idea.”

Gwaine appreciates the sentiment, he really does, but the fact that it comes before Arthur even has a chance to glance at him suspiciously implies the exact opposite.

“But anyway,” Merlin continues, “I was a little more drunk than was perhaps sensible, and I sort of...let slip that you were planning to propose to Gwen. Just to the others, your knights, and they won't tell anyone, so Gwen and your father won't find out. I'm sorry, I really am, and you are well within your right to put me in the stocks or have me muck out the stables for a month or...” Merlin cuts off when the glare Arthur is giving him registers.

“Merlin,” he says, when his servant finally shuts up. “Get out.”

“But I-”

“Out. Go away. To your room, to think about what you have done. I wish to talk to Gwaine.” Merlin leaves, dejected, shoulders sloping and head hanging, without further protest.

“'Go to your room'?” Gwaine asks, figuring that since he is about to get chewed over, he might as well launch a barb or two first. He peels himself away from the wall and strides, as cockily as he can, to stand across the table from Arthur.

To his surprise, Arthur smiles. “I had a nanny, when Morgana first came here, who used to say that when I pulled her pigtails. It was the first thing I could think of. 'My knights'?”

“Me, Leon, Lance, Perce and Elyan.” He knows this is less a question of identification than it is a challenge to see how Gwaine takes being told he is Arthur's property. “Who else's would we be? Certainly not your father's, that's for sure.” After all, Gwaine, in the months since he survived a battle where the odds were damn near to zero, has resigned himself to belonging to another man until he dies.

Arthur looks torn between feeling flattered and accusing Gwaine of treason. “You would do well to remember that as long as you stay here, my father is your king. Sit.” The instruction is so abrupt it takes a moment to make sense of. When he is sure he heard correctly, Gwaine obeys. “Thank you. Now, how true was Merlin's story?”

“I'm sorry?”

“You heard me. Was it actually Merlin who told them, or is he lying to protect someone else? You, for example.”

Gwaine imagines his face rather reflects the state of his mind: blank. After a somewhat lengthy pause, he gathers that Arthur is waiting for an answer and searches until he manages to provide one. “You think I'd let Merlin take credit for something I thought would annoy you if I was the one who had done it?”

“Very well,” Arthur replies, with a slight frown. “They would have known soon anyway, I imagine. Tell them I expect them all assembled in the courtyard outside on market day next week, seeing as I doubt they can be persuaded not to come along. And tell Merlin I expect him to have worked out a new distraction for Guinevere that does not involve either himself or my knights.”

This, apparently, is all Arthur has to say to him, as he returns to his paperwork. Gwaine rises from his seat, pushes it back under the table as quietly as he can, and flees before Arthur can invent a cruel and unusual punishment for him as well.

X

Merlin, of course, is not sitting in his room thinking about how he has told Arthur's secret plans to propose to the girl he loves to a group of drunken knights, really upsetting Lance in the process. He is standing outside Arthur's door eavesdropping on the conversation. Gwaine, not in the least bit surprised, grabs his wrist and steers him down the corridor before speaking.

“So how much of that did you catch, then?”

“Less than I wanted to. Arthur's room is surprisingly sound-proof. I thought he'd shout more, though. What did he say to you?”

“Not much, really. Asked me if it was me that told and you were lying for me. Told me to tell the others to meet on market day. You're included too, I guess, seeing as you have to find a new distraction for Gwen that doesn't involve us or you.”

“Hmm,” Merlin replies. “Because I am the best person at creating plausible distractions. Still, at least it's not the king he has me lying to this time.” He smiles slightly, then looks down at the hand Gwaine still has on his wrist. “If you could let me go, I'll be off to the armoury. He may have sent me to my room, but he'll be mad tomorrow if his armour isn't sufficiently shiny.”

Gwaine releases him, feeling slightly bereft at the loss of contact, despite having forgotten it was still there. It presumably shows on his face, because Merlin continues. “You need to tell the others, before you forget. If...” he stops, gaze focusing on something – or nothing, more likely – just beyond Gwaine's left shoulder.

“If?”

“If you wanted to come help, I'd appreciate it,” Merlin finishes.

“And if I don't want to? Is that a choice too?” Gwaine counters.

Merlin looks him in the eye, shocked. “Of course. I was going to swear, Gwaine. If you don't trust me, you shouldn't have stopped me!” He runs a hand across his forehead, smoothing the frown that is forming there. “Sorry. I didn't mean to snap. It was just...I could tell you a story, if you like? About how Lance came to Camelot, maybe?”

Gwaine has heard the official version of this tale, about how Lance pretended to be noble so that he could become a knight, then saved Arthur from the gryphon. He tells Merlin yes, anyway, because he knows what he is really offering is a story about magic, and this is the closest thing to an apology Merlin is going to give him.

X

The day of the ring purchasing expedition is clear and beautiful, quite determinedly summer. Merlin has not succeeded in persuading Arthur to let either Lance or himself avoid the trip in order to keep Gwen out the way: instead, he has had to convince Gaius to feign an extreme need for her assistance. Gaius does so, but, in typical old-man fashion, not without a great deal of complaint. Once Merlin has ensured that she will be there for the next few hours, he joins the rest of them in the courtyard and they leave.

The trip is far less cheerful an occasion than Arthur seems to have expected it to be. Leon is respectfully delighted (only to be expected, Gwaine thinks, since the girl saved his life), Percival has given Arthur so many congratulatory slaps on the back that the poor bloke has taken to bracing himself whenever he comes close, and Elyan is jumping between over-the-moon and over-protective faster than anyone can keep track of. Gwaine has decided that standing between Lance and Merlin and muttering, “smile,” through gritted teeth is the most he can do for them. It does nothing to stop Lancelot pulling faces that are really only suitable when one has been kicked in the crotch by a horse, but it reminds Merlin that this is supposed to be a joyous occasion and that, as far as anyone other than Gwaine is aware, there is no reason for him to be anything other than supportive.

“Hey, Merlin,” Arthur calls. “What about this one?” As far as Gwaine can tell, when he follows Merlin from their perch by the door to the counter where a rather portly man is displaying various types of jewellery, this ring is no different to any of the others they have seen, and they have seen a lot; Gwaine wasn't even aware there were this many shops in the kingdom that sold jewellery. But his opinion is neither required nor wanted, he has been told more than once (just how unwanted was not clear the first time).

Merlin, in a display of patience that amazes most of them, replies, “I suppose it is rather pretty, yes.”

Exactly as he has with every other ring they have seen, Arthur asks, “Will she like it, do you think?”

Merlin rolls his eyes. “Yes, Arthur. This is truly the ring for Gwen. She will love you forever and ever, and give you mind-blowing blo–” Merlin cuts his sentence off very, very quickly, blinking in a way that suggests he is trying to work out why words so much more typical of Gwaine are coming from his mouth.

Merlin has clearly had all he can handle of this trip, so Gwaine, taking pity on his blundering attempts to unsay what he didn't quite finish saying, jumps in. “Really, Arthur, this is the one. It...it sparkles just like her eyes.” Gwaine has never seen a woman with eyes that glint so maliciously – he suspects the Lady Morgana might have given the diamond a run for its money but, not having actually seen her other than from a distance, he cannot say for certain – but he thinks this is far more appropriate than Merlin's blow-job comment and distracting Arthur is currently a great deal more important than honesty.

“Are you sure that other one three shops ago wasn't better?”

When Arthur sees the way they are all looking at him (expressions range from congratulatory tolerance to _if you make me look at another ring, I will kill you, wrath of Uther be_ _damned_ ), he nods and says, “Okay. This one it is.”

He hands over a truly outstanding amount of gold and they leave, a breath of relief strong enough to rattle the windows in their frames escaping everyone.

X

Unfortunately, just when they begin to think they are free, Arthur announces that their successful mission requires drinks to celebrate. Being entirely incapable of thinking up a more plausible excuse, Gwaine announces that he can't, because he has to wash his hair.

Merlin glares, Lance takes an angry step towards him, and Gwaine swears Leon cracks his knuckles.

Possibly because he is six foot tall and blond, possibly because he is heir to a kingdom, Arthur has never heard this excuse before. “Okay, then. Shall we all meet at the tavern at sunset?”

Leon smirks, Lance looks relieved, and Merlin is quite clearly gloating on the inside.

Gwaine swears in his head, loudly and viciously – words he knows better than to say in the presence of the prince.

X

Escape attempt foiled, but hair sparklingly clean – if Arthur believes that line, he is going to use it again, and that means keeping up the pretence – Gwaine shows up at the tavern thinking of all the places he would rather be and all the things he would rather be doing. When that doesn't magically land him somewhere else, he settles for drinking.

He knows, he does, all the reasons why he stopped drinking, all the many and varied reasons why he shouldn't start now. However, he doesn't think everyone will survive the night if he has to stay sober. Just one drink, he tells himself, one drink is fine; he often has one drink, and he'll nurse it. When he has finished his one drink, though, Lance is sobbing on his shoulder and Merlin, on his third pint, is playing one-sided footsie with him under the table, staring avidly at Arthur the whole time, who in turn is talking intently with Leon.

He thinks he deserves a second drink.

Bonnie is not at the bar this evening, so he is back to the table quickly. Not as quickly as he would have liked, unfortunately, because his seat is now occupied by Percival, who appears to be abusing Lance in a misguided attempt to cheer him up. The only remaining empty place at their table is – how could it not be? – next to Merlin.

Merlin, who seems to think that what Gwaine needs most to make this long, awful day complete is the simple pleasure of human contact.

It isn't too bad at first; Merlin brushes his arm when he fidgets in his seat, grabs his wrist when he offers to get him another drink (“No, thank you, Merlin,” he replies, as politely as possible). Then Merlin's hand is stroking his side, somehow making this look like an accident. His eyes have still not left the prince when he places his hand on Gwaine's knee and slowly slides it up his leg, fingers brushing his inner thigh. Gwaine has just taken a large gulp of his drink, which does not go well with his surprised gasp. By the time he has relearned a normal pattern of breathing, Merlin's hand is dangerously close to places it shouldn't be at all, let alone when in the presence of other people.

He grabs Merlin's wrist hard enough to leave bruises and places it back on his own leg. Merlin huffs in displeasure, but says nothing. Two minutes later, his hand is back. Gwaine removes it a second time, trying to ignore just how sensitive he is discovering the inside of his left knee to be.

The third time, he decides enough is enough and stands. “Another round, lads?” When Elyan offers to help him carry, he says, “Nah, Merlin's helping, aren't you?” and tows him away before he has the chance to protest.

Halfway to the bar, and with his back to the table, he drops the smile. “What do you think you're doing?” he hisses under his breath, a crowded tavern hardly the best of places for this conversation.

“Oh, come off it, Gwaine,” Merlin snarls back, equally quietly. “Everyone knows how much of a slut you are. I figured, even if I'm not up to the standards of your usual lays, it really wouldn't be all that hard to persuade you. Clearly, though, I am much less adept at messing with people's memories than you are.”

There are three parts to this. Gwaine cannot really respond to the first, his best friend calling him a slut, seeing as he is (or was, at the very least, and has never really shown any signs of shame). Nor does he want to respond to Merlin thinking himself inadequate, because it really won't send the conversation in a useful direction. Thus, he focuses on the third of Merlin's remarks. “And why would you think I want my memories messing with?”

“Because you as good as told me you were in love with someone when you told me you knew I love Arthur. And then you tell me you can make me forget, and why would you have done that if it wasn't so you could forget as well?”

Silence settles uncomfortably around them while Gwaine thinks furiously. The only conclusion he manages to reach is that he doesn't want to continue this conversation here. “This isn't the time to talk about it, Merlin,” he mutters; as if to accentuate his point, he hears someone from their group grumble loudly about the emptiness of his tankard and the absence of a fresh one. “Help me get the drinks, and then we can go.”

He doesn't make it a question, because if he sounds uncertain for a second Merlin will run with it for hours. He doesn't say where they will go, either; the only place he can think of where they won't be interrupted or overheard is his room, and telling Merlin they should go back to his is not the sentiment he wants to convey.

Merlin casts him a cool, assessing look, trying to decide whether Gwaine is just trying to make his escape. Apparently he looks honest enough, though, as Merlin nods and together they take five drinks back to the table (Gwaine still has most of his second pint left, and Merlin, he thinks, has had enough). He is still trying to think of a way for he and Merlin to leave together without it looking suspicious – Merlin is nowhere near drunk enough to require an escort home, and there is little to no chance of him allowing Gwaine to leave alone – when Lance stands, sways, hiccups and slurs, “I'm going back now. Goodnight. Con-congratulations.”

Within two steps, it looks highly unlikely he will make it home without something terrible happening, so Gwaine grabs one of his arms and says, “Merlin, give me a hand, mate?”

X

Together, they make an ungainly procession back to Lancelot's room, much to the amusement of those they pass on the way.

“You going to be alright, now?” Gwaine asks, supporting Lance with an arm around his waist as Merlin tries the door.

“Keys, Lance?” When he doesn't reply, Merlin asks again. “Lancelot, where is your key?”

It is clear this won't get an answer either. Gwaine says, “Leave it, Merlin. He can stay with me.” This is just a mindless comment, no thought to it, but Merlin looks incredulous.

“No, I don't think he can. You said we were going to talk, and I don't particularly want anyone  listening in.” Merlin checks the corridor in both directions and, seeing it empty, mutters under his breath, eyes flashing gold, then pushes the door open. He hooks Lance's free arm back over his shoulder and walks them into the room.

They deposit Lance gently on his bed to extensive gratitude and apologies for ruining their night.

“'S'fine, Lance, mate,” Gwaine tells him, if only to make him stop. “Was hardly a good day, was it? Tavern is much less fun now I don't drink as much. Sleep it off, alright, and we'll see you tomorrow.” They depart, Gwaine clapping him on the back and Merlin smiling far more kindly now that he is clearly going to get his way.

As soon as they do, Gwaine regrets it. He still has no idea where to go – although, he realises belatedly, Merlin has made the decision for him, because he has set off quite confidently in the direction of Gwaine's room. Reluctantly, Gwaine follows.

While Gwaine closes the door securely behind him, Merlin settles himself comfortably in a chair, boots off and abandoned by the fire, his feet curled underneath him. Gwaine removes his own shoes and sits too, keeping his feet firmly on the floor; he has a suspicion this conversation will require pacing.

“Is it Lance?” Merlin asks, and it takes Gwaine a moment to understand.

When he does, he laughs. “No, Merlin, it is _not_ Lancelot.”

Merlin is visibly offended. “Sorry,” he says, slightly contemptuously. “It seemed sensible. I just thought, you're always comforting him, and you did try get him with Gwen.”

“I'd try comfort any of my friends who are as miserable as him. You should know that. And the thing with Gwen...” Gwaine rises, turning away from Merlin to stare at the stars visible out his window. He is sheepish, ashamed, despite the fact that it is months since then. “That was...I thought if Gwen broke up with Arthur, he might...” Gwaine trails off, aware of how ridiculous the end of that sentence is.

His first clue that Merlin has drastically misinterpreted him are the words he does not understand, the second the way the curtains shoot themselves across his windows. “Arthur?”

Gwaine turns back, his closed curtains being less of a focal point than the stars. Merlin's face is unreadable, but he has the feeling that the wrong answer might get him blasted into a thousand pieces. Since he doesn't know what the right answer is, he opts for telling the truth and hoping for the best.

“No. Definitely not. I would never consider – I, I mean, he's very handsome, and I suppose I can see why you like him, sort of, maybe, but _no_.” There is very little that can make that sentence worse, so he just gives up. “I thought if he wasn't with Gwen, then you could be with him.”

He can read Merlin's face easily now, some mix of relief, exasperated fondness and horrified mortification. It is not a face that should be easy to read, not at all. “Was stupid, I know. I'm sorry. Arthur is...” he stops, again, not wanting to cause further damage.

Merlin finishes his sentence for him anyway. “Arthur isn't attracted to men.” He doesn't say anything for quite a few minutes. “It's not that I don't appreciate the thought, Gwaine, but please don't try that again.”

Gwaine mumbles that he won't, ever, and Merlin pretends the brief segue never occurred. “Are you just going to make me keep guessing?”

He could reply that Merlin won't guess, not in a million years (seeing as if he would apply his earlier reasoning to Gwaine's actual purpose in engineering the Gwen-Lancelot debacle, Merlin would have his answer, but he won't; Merlin, almighty sorcerer, lacks any idea of just how admirable he is) but settles instead for, “I wish you wouldn't. It's not important, anyway.”

Merlin looks ready to protest this – and possibly be justified in doing so, as who Gwaine loves is about the most salient point in answering why he slept with Merlin – so Gwaine continues before he can. “They love someone else. I'm not going to tell them; it would only...confuse matters. And it really isn't why, Merlin. I didn't have sex with you to forget. If that was all I'd wanted, I'd've picked someone up at the tavern and gone back to their place, or found a quiet alley somewhere.” It is the cruel, shameful truth, and Gwaine feels himself flinch saying it. “I wouldn't do that to you, wouldn't use you like that. You're my friend,” there are so many ways he could end that sentence – you're too important, too good, too pure – but he thinks the one he settles for, not a concern he would have had in the past, is probably the most honest, “It wouldn't be fair.”

He realises, as soon as he says it, that he has made a mistake. “Not fair?” Merlin, naive enough to believe kings should marry for love and that double standards do not exist, is not impressed. Not at all. “It's not fair for you to use me to forget, but it's just fine for me to use you?”

“You weren't using me: it was my idea.” It is both the most flimsy of excuses and all he can manage. Much as he wants to avoid arguing with Merlin, he doesn't know how beyond asking, “Can we not do this again, Merlin? We've talked about this before; we both know how it will go. You'll be angry, I'll say something dumb that makes it worse, we'll barely talk for ages, and then I'll find myself walking some place with my consent. Can we just not, please? Can we pretend it never happened?”

“I don't know how,” Merlin sighs. “I don't know how to be your friend anymore, when all I see when I look at you is that night. You flinch every time I touch you, every time we're alone together. Tell me, Gwaine, can you pretend it never happened, when you're so fucking scared of me now?”

“I'm not scared of _you_ , Merlin. Maybe I should be, and you sure as hell want me to be, sometimes, but I'm not.” He ignores Merlin's challenging, _what are you afraid of, then?_ expression, because the answer, that he is afraid of losing himself, his self-control, is too raw to give Merlin. “I'm sorry. Should never have made that offer. I shouldn't. We both knew it wouldn't work. Or would have done, if we hadn't drunk so much.”

“Wouldn't work? Why did you think I...I've been...it was...You're such an idiot, Gwaine. You said that you...that I...and we...”

This would be so much easier, Gwaine thinks, if Merlin would finish one sentence before starting the next, and preferably ones that don't involve calling him names. He waits, though, knowing Merlin will get there eventually, and he isn't in too much of a hurry to get to the inevitable, terrible end of their conversation.

“I forgot, okay? You said that you could make me forget that I'm totally in love with Arthur, and I knew you couldn't but I pretended you would and so we...and I forgot. Just for that time, it was gone, all of it; Arthur and Gwen, Lancelot, magic, the total bloody hopelessness that is my life. And then you knew, only you didn't, I just thought you did, and it all came back again, all these problems, and there was another life resting on my shoulders. And even though you know as well, I can't talk to you about anything that involves real conversation because we were stupid enough to sleep together, and Lance said I should try talk about my magic, he was really sure that would help us at least be friends, and it didn't; I still can't be near you without remembering what forgetting felt like.”

Merlin is gasping for breath when he finishes, perching on the edge of his seat and staring at the floor. Gwaine has never seen him like this: he has seen Merlin angry, sad, happy, cold, vicious, in control and completely out of it, but he has never seen him so completely without hope.

“So,” he says, “what do we do now?”

He isn't really expecting an answer, since Merlin has said just about everything that can be said on the matter. They aren't really friends anymore, cannot be friends anymore. Gwaine has fucked up the first friendship he has ever had, the closest, most real friendship he has ever had, now that he has more than one, because, as Lance said that first day when his world had just fallen to pieces, he couldn't keep it in his trousers.

“We could,” Merlin replies, eventually, cautiously, ready to go from hopeless to shattered in as long as it takes Gwaine to say the wrong thing. “We could do it again?”

This time it is Gwaine who thinks for a moment too long, and he knows it, knows what this must being doing to Merlin, but he doesn't know what to say. If he says no, he genuinely believes Merlin will walk out and never speak to him again, without even the slightest chance of repairing things. If he says yes, he sleeps with Merlin again, without telling him he loves him. He sleeps with Merlin again, and feels like dirt, both used and user. He sleeps with Merlin again, and...and there really isn't any more to it.

He says yes.

X

Their first time, Gwaine knows, fantastic as it was, was hurried. It was hurried and rushed and he loved every minute of it except for the more than a month afterwards when his life was completely and utterly ruined and there was no way anything could get any worse.

Their second time, he vows to himself, will be better. Now that he knows there will be a second time, and the reasons why, there will be a third, fourth, so many. Because if the only way for him to be friends with Merlin is to keep sleeping with him, well, it's not really that much of a hardship, is it?

He says, “Yes, we could,” and Merlin beams at him and stands up, stepping so close that Gwaine barely has room to stand himself.

“Now?” Merlin asks.

Gwaine thinks, “Of course now, you idiot,” is not a good response, so he just closes the almost invisible gap between them, tilting his head up the little bit that is necessary for him to kiss Merlin. It starts gently, softly, just lips brushing against each other, then Merlin opens his mouth and there are suddenly tongues involved.

Gwaine wants to take it slowly, slower than last time, but Merlin doesn't seem to like the idea of slow. One of his hands is in Gwaine's hair and the second is groping at his arse, bringing their groins into contact, and even fully dressed Gwaine is groaning into Merlin's mouth – although, he realises, they will not be fully dressed for long because Merlin is currently undoing his shirt.

It takes some time for Gwaine to realise that, seeing as neither of Merlin's hands have moved and his own are firmly anchored on Merlin's hips, there should not be any hands free to undo his shirt. He ends the kiss abruptly, fighting Merlin's grip on his head in order to pull back enough to look down, and sees bizarre glow-y lights undressing him.

It is decidedly unexciting – verges on frightening, actually.

“Merlin,” he hisses, looking into gold eyes, heavy-lidded with lust. “What is this?”

Merlin releases his hair and looks at him in confusion. “Magic?”

“Yes, Merlin, but _why_?” The question is slightly muffled as the lights are lifting his shirt by the hem; he raises his arms obediently, instinctively, as they pull it over his head and let it drop to the floor.

“It's quicker?” Merlin still doesn't seem to comprehend, if the way he presses close again – fingers tracing Gwaine's stomach, lights moving to the ties of his trousers – is any indication. Some remote part of Gwaine's brain thinks that if his trousers open now, Merlin will be either disappointed or severely offended; the rest is focused on catching Merlin's wrists and moving them away from his person.

“Use your hands,” he says, shaking them gently, trying not to add to the bruises he has already left there this evening. “The rest of us have always made do with two.”

“Fine, I'll stop.” The lights vanish as Merlin tugs his hands free. “Can we go back to kissing now?”

He doesn't wait for an answer, just acts, and Gwaine can either open his mouth or have his lips cut by his own teeth as Merlin crashes back against him, hands returning to their prior positions. He doesn't actually want to stop, anyway, just knows that they should really finish the conversation first. But this is Merlin: he's had magic since he was born, so he should really know how to use it without anyone getting hurt.

Still, he feels the need to check, occasionally, that only two pairs of hands are involved in their disrobing. Merlin keeps his word, though, murmuring, “sorry,” in a genuinely contrite way as the hand cupping Gwaine's crotch reveals just how much of an effect his use of magic had. By the time Merlin has revived his erection, Gwaine's hands have achieved the same level of enthusiasm they had earlier. Seeing as he himself is already missing a shirt, he thinks it entirely fair that he divests Merlin of his, even if they have to break lip-contact for a matter of seconds in order to do so. He removes Merlin's scarf as well, taking care to throw it at his bed – he'll be damned if he can't find some use for it in the long hours between now and dawn.

Of course, the next logical step after shirtlessness is trouserlessness, and whilst Gwaine enjoys illogicality for the purpose of infuriating others, he sees no reason for now, so he allows his hands to make their way to the fastening of Merlin's trousers. He is clearly taking too long undoing it, because Merlin rasps, “Let me,” his words tangled somewhere between Gwaine's mouth and ear, scorching Gwaine’s skin, and his trousers vanish. Gwaine would complain, what with him only just having said no magic, but Merlin wasn't using it on him, and Merlin's nakedness means Gwaine has far better ways to occupy his mouth, ways that leave Merlin breathless and clutching at the bedpost Gwaine has pushed him back up against for support.

X

It is not until far later (Gwaine is more than a little proud of just how much later it is), when their breathing has resumed a calmer pace and Merlin's eyes have faded back to blue, that Gwaine asks whether it is possible to unvanish things.

Merlin only mumbles a sleepy, “hmm,” as he rolls onto his front, pillowing his head on Gwaine's shoulder and draping a possessive arm over his stomach.

Some deep, vicious part of Gwaine contemplates removing the arm and leaving, sneaking away while Merlin is asleep the same way Merlin did to him. He wonders what Merlin's face would look like on finding himself alone, what he would think and feel and do, whether it would hurt him as much as it had hurt Gwaine. It only lasts a second, and he feels instantly guilty; the thought of hurting Merlin is alien to him, intolerable, so bad that considering it for even a moment feels like the worst sin Gwaine has ever committed.

Besides, why would he go anywhere when Merlin is lying next to him and he's too tired to move in any case?

X

The light that makes its way around the mostly closed curtains come morning is weak, the weather outside grey and miserable, but Gwaine really couldn't care less; Merlin is still in his bed.

He sits, careful not to wake Merlin, and leans against the headboard, content to watch him sleep. At least, content for the moment it takes to realise _just how_ creepy that is, at which point he tries, gently, to shake him into wakefulness.

“Merlin,” he murmurs, when shaking fails to elicit a response. “Merlin, it's late. Someone will come looking for us.”

“Let them look,” Merlin grumbles back, his arm tightening across Gwaine’s stomach. “I'm tired.”

Gwaine recalls all the times he has heard Arthur complain about his lazy manservant and wanted to hit him for it – because, really, can he not see how hard Merlin works, how far he is willing to go for him? – and sort of thinks now that perhaps the prince has a point. Maybe. Merlin is so clearly not a fan of mornings, and as much as Gwaine wants nothing more than to fall asleep again in a tangle of legs and arms, people really will be wondering where they are.

“Merlin,” he says again, slightly less patiently. “People will worry when we don't show up. They'll try to find you at Gaius', and then they'll remember that we both took Lance home last night. If we're lucky, Lance will think to lie, telling them we left his room separately, but he has no real reason to, and he's not the brightest of blokes – oh, that gets your attention, doesn't it?” Merlin half-sits up, glaring at him, because apparently insults to his friends succeed in waking him when reasoned argument does not.

“So,” he continues, under the ever increasing force of Merlin's ire, “Either Lancelot lies to whoever is looking and comes here himself, which will be embarrassing and awkward but at least he already knows, or Lance will tell the truth and Arthur” – Merlin starts at the name – “yes, it will be Arthur who is trying to find you, and possibly Leon, if anyone is looking for me as well. Arthur will show up here only to find us naked in my bed. Now, I don't really have a problem with everyone knowing, but if your reaction last time is anything to go by, you probably want to keep this all a secret.”

Merlin blinks at him, as though a speech this long is too much to take in so early in the morning. Gwaine knows the minute it all sinks in, because Merlin starts violently and leaps from the bed with such urgency he almost falls over.

Gwaine laughs for a second, stopping when it hits him that Merlin has the power to wipe him from the face of the earth with considerably less difficulty than it takes the average person to swat a fly. His words have the effect he intended them to, though, because Merlin is hunting furiously for his clothes. Gwaine stands, stretching lazily, enjoying the way his spine pops and cracks as he does so, and proceeds to dress with slightly less haste and a fair amount more speed; he is amused to find that while he laces his second boot, Merlin is still desperately looking.

“Gwaine?” Merlin asks, pausing in his search as something dawns on him. “You asked about unvanishing things last night, didn't you?”

He nods, smirking slightly, and wonders if he is finding everything just a little bit too funny today. “It is possible, isn't it? Because otherwise you might have a problem.”

“Gwaine!” Merlin wails (not that Gwaine would tell him that's what he's doing, given the whole fly-swatting thing Merlin has going on). “You have to lend me some trousers. I can't go out there like this.” He gestures to himself, long, pale legs sticking out the bottom of a hideous, oversized, red-orange shirt.

Gwaine would like to reply that Merlin is perfectly able to wander around the castle naked from the waist down, and comment on how much he would enjoy the view if he were to do so. Then he remembers Merlin's amazing vanishing powers and how much he wants to have clothes for himself, so he retrieves his sword belt from its hook by the door, fastening it quickly, and digs around in a drawer to find Merlin something to wear.

This is apparently none too soon, because there is a knock on the door just as Merlin is pulling on his own boots. Gwaine gestures at him to tidy the bed, carefully kicking the remains of a broken...something under the table it used to sit on (Merlin's magic was not content to just play with fire this time, instead choosing to break things; Gwaine takes this as a compliment) and opens the door wide enough to see who it is.

“Gwaine!” barks Arthur. “Is Merlin here? He's late.” Lance pulls apologetic faces from over his shoulder, and yes, there is Leon standing behind them both, looking exasperated at what has presumably been a reasonably long hunt.

“Yes, he is. Sorry. We were just about to leave.” He opens the door, internally questioning his use of the first person plural – will Merlin object to being part of a _we_? Does Merlin realise Gwaine intends them to be a couple from now on? Is referring to them as _we_ going to give the game away?

The others don't even blink, of course they don't, because they have no reason to think anything happened. To them, it just looks like Merlin spent the night on Gwaine's floor because he didn't want to go home tipsy and wake Gaius. If Gwaine can manage to pull himself together enough not to let the cat out of the bag, no one is ever going to guess anything.

And then he notices Lance looks mildly stricken – a little extreme, even if he isn't Gwaine's biggest fan – and Arthur and Leon are gawping over his shoulder. He follows their eyes, turning in time to see his bed finish making itself whilst Merlin is across the other side of the room opening the curtains, his eyes reflected in the window, wide with fear and glowing an unmistakable gold.

“Bollocks,” Gwaine says loudly, because what else is there to say?

X

Fortunately, Lance, showing surprising presence of mind, shoves Arthur into the room, pulling Leon in after him, and shuts the door, planting himself solidly in front of it. It is a testament to just how unaware Arthur was of Merlin's magic that he allows Gwaine to steer him into a chair without complaint. Leon is equally compliant – perhaps even more so, as he sits without assistance or instruction.

Less fortunately, Merlin is still standing exactly where he was when Gwaine opened the door, having only just succeeded in turning to face the room. He looks no less stricken, no less scared, and utterly incapable of forming a syllable, let alone a sentence. Gwaine glances at Lance, who appears to have decided that keeping Arthur and Leon in the room is sufficient assistance, and concludes that he will be the one relied upon to provide an explanation.

He spends several minutes trying to think up a plausible lie, but the best he can manage is to claim that he himself is the sorcerer; this is flawed in many ways, not least the fact that he wouldn't have opened the door and shown them the magic taking place if he had been the one doing it. Besides, Arthur is far less likely to execute a servant of whom he is rather fond than he is a reluctant, insubordinate knight, and Gwaine is prepared to fight to the death to give Merlin chance to escape, if it comes to that. And, anyway, there is at least a small chance Arthur will listen to reason; he may have been raised on a diet of hating magic, but he is not as fanatical about it as his father, and Merlin does matter to him.

That decided, Gwaine tells the truth, hoping his reasons for doing so are good enough that it doesn't really count as breaking his blood oath.

“Merlin is a sorcerer.”

“Gwaine!” Merlin wails, in the exact tone he used earlier (and, actually, Gwaine has just realised how this whole mess could be even worse than it is: Merlin could still be half naked), this time echoed by Lance.

“What?” he hisses at them. “I tried to think up something they'd believe. It's not like either of you had any ideas.” He turns back to Arthur, who appears close to regaining the power of speech. “I'm only telling you the truth because I can't think up a lie you won't see straight through, and I swear on everything and anything that I will kill you if you hurt him, regardless of who your father is.”

“Gwaine!” Again with the bloody wailing. Can't Merlin see he's just trying to keep everyone alive?

“Merlin!” he mimics, slightly cruelly. “Come on, I'm not actually going to hurt him, because he's not stupid enough to do anything about it. Not once he realises how quickly he'll die if he does.”

Leon has found his voice somewhat quicker than Gwaine thought he would, even if it is still a little croaky. “I hardly–” he swallows and tries again, faltering under Gwaine's glare but braving on. “I hardly think making threats is going to help your case, Sir Gwaine.”

“Threats? I'm not making...well, okay, I suppose I did, but only the once. That second bit was just a statement. How do you think the prince has survived so long? He almost dies at least once a week.” He takes a deep breath, trying – the first time in his life he can remember doing so – to look less than intimidating, and resumes conversation with the still silent prince.

“Merlin, sire,” he says, in the hope that sounding respectful is as useful as he has always been told it is, “Is the only thing standing between Camelot and her certain demise. I hope you take that under consideration before acting.” His piece said, Gwaine perches on the end of his bed, keeping a hand on his sword hilt just in case Arthur seems to be leaning towards the wrong decision.

Eventually, the prince speaks. “Merlin? Is this...Are you...Is Gwaine telling the truth?”

Of course, what comes out of his mouth is drivel. Why Gwaine expected otherwise, he really doesn't know. Because he's going to make up a lie that has the potential to kill someone he so very clearly cares about.

Merlin takes a few tentative steps towards them all, keeping eye contact with Arthur. “Yes.”

“About the magic?”

“Yes.”

“And...And saving my life with it?”

“Yes.” Merlin makes no attempt at feigning modesty (because it would be feigned, Gwaine knows. Merlin is proud of his powers and how he uses them, and, he thinks, rightly so), just tells the truth.

“How many times?”

At this, Merlin is unsure. He looks to be counting in his head, but settles for saying, “A lot.”

“A lot?”

“I don't know. I haven't really kept track.”

Gwaine raises an eyebrow, because he's pretty sure Merlin could make a solid estimate and has just chosen not to, but Arthur nods, accepting, and asks his next question. “When?”

“When?”

“Yes, _Mer_ lin, when? Give me examples.” Gwaine relaxes slightly, seeing Lance do the same from the corner of his eye; if Arthur is using that tone of voice, things cannot be so terrible as to be beyond handling. He wonders if Arthur has worked out just how much his voice gives away, or if the acceptance implied in it is entirely without thought.

When Merlin fails to answer, Gwaine decides a prompt is necessary. He thinks of the stories Merlin told him during their attempts to repair their friendship. “Sophia,” he says firmly.

Arthur barely glances at him, all his focus on Merlin as he continues the interrogation. “Sophia?”

“Sophia was a sidhe.”

“Yes, Merlin,” Arthur replies, his voice more patronising than Gwaine has ever heard it. “I know she was a woman. I fail to see how preventing me from eloping counts as saving my life, though.”

“No, she was a sidhe, one of the sidhe.” When Arthur is no clearer on the matter, Merlin sighs. “She was a fairy. S-I-D-H-E. She was banished from Avalon, and only allowed to go back if she sacrificed the life of a human prince.”

Arthur pauses, then asks, “Vivian?”

“Alined put a love spell on you both, to start a war between us and her father. Gaius and I told Gwen how to break it.”

“Elena?”

“Changeling. The sidhe wanted one of their own as queen one day. We got the fairy out of her; she's just a normal girl now.”

Gwaine sees the next question coming and winces on Lance's behalf, both because Arthur _just has_ to ask it and because he knows what the answer is.

“Gwen?”

“No,” Merlin smiles sadly. “No, that's real. She loves you, and you her. Nothing magic about it, and Gwen's entirely human.”

Arthur breathes a sigh of relief while Lance's breaking heart is written all over his face. “And the old man who claimed to have enchanted us?”

“That was me. Morgana planted the first spell, to get rid of Gwen. I used an aging spell. Nearly couldn't get rid of it. It was a little bit close for my liking, that one.” He laughs, just a little, and Arthur almost joins in, but only almost.

“The last Dragon Lord. Did you know him before we found him?”

“No. I never met him before then.” Merlin looks hesitant, but carries on. “He was my father.”

Gwaine knows that Merlin only briefly met his father before his death, but the bit where his father was a Dragon Lord is new. He wants Arthur to ask more, until he sees the wet sheen in Merlin's eyes – some wounds, he supposes, never close completely, no matter how old they are. Arthur just nods.

“The dragon?”

Merlin stays quiet.

“Merlin, the dragon? I–” Arthur works it out. “I didn't kill it, did I? Did _you_ kill it?”

Merlin shakes his head.

“It's still alive? You could have killed it – the Dragon Lord's gift is passed from father to son, I _know_ you could have done – and you let it go?”

“He won't come back, ever, or hurt anyone else.”

“That's not the point, Merlin. It did so much damage, killed so many, and you just allowed it to – no, never mind, you'd never kill anything if you had the choice. How did it get free in the first place, that's far more important?” Again his query is met by silence, decidedly less pleasant than that which came before. “You can't expect me to believe you don't know, Merlin. You must do, you apparently know everything else that happens in the city. You...oh, Merlin, tell me you _didn't_.” When Merlin doesn't deny it, Arthur lurches to his feet.

Gwaine tries to put himself between them – even if Merlin did release the dragon on Camelot, he...he _must_ have done so for a reason, even if Gwaine can’t think of one right now. Merlin is good, he loves Arthur; Gwaine can't believe Merlin would have tried to harm the city deliberately – but he makes it no further than standing before his feet are frozen in place. “Merlin!” he shouts. “Merlin, let me go, you idiot.” Instead, he is forced back to his bed and sat down, even as Arthur takes another step towards Merlin. “Fine. Stop me trying to protect you. Let him kill you.”

Merlin doesn't take his eyes from Arthur as he says, so very softly, “I had to, Arthur. I swore I would, in exchange for learning how to save you. I didn't have a choice.”

Arthur takes a step back. “Of course you had a choice. You had a choice between my life and those of so many others. No man is worth so much.”

At this point, Leon interjects. “Excuse me, sire, but you are wrong. As the future king, your life is worth far more than any other individual's. Without you, Camelot falls.” When Arthur looks set to argue back, he ploughs on. “Regardless, you have known for years that your life is built on the sacrifices of others. It is of no relevance here.”

Arthur turns away from Merlin, focusing first on Leon, then Lance, and finally Gwaine, still struggling against invisible bindings. He sighs and sits again. “You can let him go, Merlin. I do not agree with what you have done, but I understand why.”

Merlin nods, as though this is what he expected to hear. He glances at Gwaine swiftly, harshly, before letting him go, and Gwaine can read the look perfectly: _Stay where you are, or I will make you stay._

“What else do you need to know?” Merlin asks.

Arthur thinks for a moment, until, rather than enquiring about further instances of his life being saved or of occasions where he believes magic may have been used, he asks, “Who else knows?”

Merlin lies for what Gwaine thinks is probably the first time in the conversation. “No one.”

It is not a convincing lie.

“No one?”

“Yes, Arthur. No one else knows.”

Repetition doesn't make it any more believable.

“Merlin, Gwaine threatened my life after announcing something you say he does not know. And I hardly think Lancelot grasped the situation and picked a side so very quickly. Try again, please.”

Merlin does so. “Okay. Gwaine knew. Lance really is that quick on the uptake, though.”

This, Gwaine realises, is a very bad time to laugh. However, realising that and being able to avoid it are two very different things. His snort is mostly covered by Lance replying, “Really, Merlin, you are a terrible liar. Yes, sire, I knew.”

“Thank you, Lancelot. I assume you know the penalty for concealing the whereabouts of a sorcerer.”

Lance looks remarkably unafraid for a man staring down someone who has the power to order his death, who has just – in a round-a-bout way – threatened exactly that. “I know, yes. But I thought seeing as the sorcerer in question is the reason you and I and almost anyone else you might care to name are all still alive, handing him in to face execution seemed a little ungrateful.”

“I see,” Arthur states. “I take this to mean you have known for some time, then.”

“Since he enchanted the lance with which I slew the gryphon, yes.”

This is the last question directed at Lancelot; it is now Gwaine's turn. “And how long have you known?”

“A month or so. Since the day Merlin disappeared. That was why; he thought I would turn him in.” Gwaine rather hopes that providing too much detail to the easy questions he is asked will make answering the question of how he found out simpler.

“And were you going to?”

“ _No!_ Fucking hell no, Arthur.” Gwaine is shocked to be asked; surely his earlier defence of Merlin is enough to show where his loyalties lie, let alone the fact that he has chosen to stay in one place for so long, fighting for a kingdom not his own and king he doesn't particularly care for. “I wasn't actually aware, anyway, until Lancelot came to explain it to me so I'd get Merlin to come back.”

Arthur nods. “How is it that Merlin thought you knew when in fact you did not?”

This is far too close to questions that Gwaine doesn't want to answer honestly, but since he was the idiot that led to it being asked, that led to Arthur finding out, he has to say something, and he has to make it sound good. “I was drunk. So was he, and he used magic accidentally. I didn't see, or I did, but I didn't understand, because we were...we were drunk.” The looks he receives for this sentence are really most peculiar, but Arthur isn't questioning him any further so he has apparently escaped the awkwardness of explaining what actually happened (particularly seeing as Merlin would probably stop him midway through).

“And you are sure no one else knows?”

At Merlin's agreement, Arthur sighs. “Liar, _Mer_ lin. Hunith, of course, but Ealdor isn't in our land so she is safe. And Gaius, too, I take it, but if he can get away with practising magic himself before the Purge, he can get away with hiding a sorcerer now.” Arthur has noticed Merlin's incredulous state by now, because he says, “Yes, Merlin, she will be safe. I don't intend to hand you in to my father. As for these fools, however, it rather depends upon their ability to keep their mouths shut.”

Gwaine feigns indignation, and Lance rolls his eyes. Neither of them is too bothered, though, because it seems they will all make it through this with heads attached.

“I think, though,” Arthur continues, “Some sort of oath is required. A magically binding one, that you will only use your powers in the defence and protection of Camelot.”

“No,” Merlin replies. “I'll swear, yes, but not that.”

“No?” Arthur is not happy with this refusal, not at all; in fact, he looks almost to be second guessing his decision not to turn Merlin in. Gwaine hopes desperately that Merlin has good reasons for saying no, and will promise something equally acceptable, because he’d just got his hopes up for a mostly peaceful resolution and really doesn’t want to kill anyone. “What will you swear, then?”

“I swear,” says Merlin, his voice brimming with the same something it had when he made his oath to Lancelot – something Gwaine now realises is power. They are hearing Merlin's magic in every syllable he speaks, and it is a majesty beyond Gwaine’s wildest dreams. “I swear, on all that I have ever loved, all that I love now, and all that I ever will love, never to use my powers to the detriment of Camelot, her citizens, and her rightful ruler.”

Gwaine feels a tremor run through the castle, the bed shaking under him, and a vase falls from a table by the door, shattering with a clear, cool crash. It lasts for mere seconds, and then he feels a secondary quake, entirely distinct, shake just him. He sees Lance and Arthur also hit by the second quake, while Leon is not, and imagines the same thing happening to Gwen, Gaius, Hunith – every other person that Merlin loves.

And then it stops.

Merlin sways, paler than snow, and crumples. Gwaine moves to catch him, but to his surprise Leon is there first. He lifts him gently – for all that he is tall, Merlin, Gwaine knows, feels incredibly fragile, breakable – and, when Gwaine nods, places him on the bed.

Gwaine looks at him in a way that he hopes asks _why?_ and apparently it does, since Leon replies, “We owe him our loyalty. Without him, Camelot and the prince would be lost.”

Arthur rises, walking over to stand by Gwaine at the bedside. Gwaine looks from Merlin to Arthur, amazed by the expression on the latter's face. He thinks, just briefly, that Arthur could love Merlin, maybe, in a world where there is no Gwen, no magic or monsters, and he is not about to become king. In some other world where he is just a man, not a prince, the two of them would be beautiful, amazing, unbelievable. The thought hits hard, twisting his stomach into some mess of unrecognisable emotions, impossible to unravel, and sending all his certainty with regards to himself and Merlin spiralling off in directions unknown.

It is only briefly, then Arthur's face changes, almost imperceptibly, and Gwaine wonders if it was all just his imagination.

“You're excused for today,” Arthur says, clapping him on the back. “Keep an eye on him. You too, Lancelot.”

Gwaine doesn't notice them leave, doesn't notice Lance take up Arthur's spot next to him. He is dazed, lost and confused, because what is he if Merlin doesn't need him? If there is even a chance that Merlin could have Arthur, could have the man he truly wants, deserves, loves, how can Gwaine stand in the way of that? How can he do anything but try to make Merlin happy?

How can he possibly give him up?

He sits next to Merlin's still body, smoothing his hair from his clammy forehead, watching his chest rise and fall. Merlin's breathing is slow and near silent, but steady. He wants to lie next to him, fall into the same deep, exhausted slumber, but he knows he won't be able to. All he can do is sit and wait, until Merlin wakes and his life resumes.

Gwaine jumps when Lance puts a hand on his shoulder. “It is okay. Do not worry, Gwaine,” Lance says. “He will be okay.”

“Know that. Merlin will be fine.” He looks up at Lance, expression carefully blank. “Arthur is on his side, most of us knights. Merlin will be fine.”

Lance cocks his head and frowns. “And you, Gwaine? Will you be okay?”

Gwaine closes his eyes for a long moment, looking for the same surety he felt last night, this morning, before Arthur arrived and Gwaine gave up Merlin's secret. He finds it, almost; not as bright, as strong, but still there. He opens his eyes, smiling.

“Yeah,” he says, lacing his fingers with Merlin's. He knows Lance sees this, works out what it means from the way he smiles back at him, actually pleased. “Yeah, I'll be okay.”

X

Merlin stays unconscious for four days. Gwaine remains awake for all of them.

Lance fetches food for the pair of them, and a broth Gaius advices for Merlin (who needs nutrition, even if he isn't able to eat solid food), and tells him to sleep every few hours. Gwaine tries, but can't; frankly, he is amazed Lance can, snoring softly from a stack of blankets on the floor.

“You can go, you know,” Gwaine tells him on the second day, shortly after Arthur brings reports of earthquakes throughout the kingdom: in the caves where they hid from Morgana, various parts of the forest around the city, the lake a few hours from the castle (Merlin, Gwaine thinks, loves some pretty odd places). “I can take care of him.”

“I do not doubt it,” Lance says, implacable but not unkind. “But who is taking care of you?”

Gwaine doesn't argue, just picks up the letter Gaius received from Hunith and gave to Arthur to deliver. Merlin's mother, he reads aloud, hopes Merlin knows what he is doing, and requests a warning if there are to be similar occurrences in the future. Merlin does not react, but Gwaine did not really think he would.

X

On the evening of the third day, Gaius comments that magical exhaustion does not usually last this long (a day of unconsciousness, another one or two of needing to sleep every couple of hours; that is the average, or so he says, and Gwaine has no reason to doubt his expertise), and asks what it was that Merlin swore. When Gwaine tells him, he merely _hmms_ and turns to leave.

Gwaine grabs his arm, ignoring Lance's protests. “What?”

Gaius looks at him, assessing him somehow. It seems he passes whatever test the old man has set him, because Gaius answers his question. “A brave oath to swear. It's so easy to break an oath, and this one...if Merlin ever uses his magic against, Arthur, Uther, or the kingdom, we fall. Anywhere the earth shook three days ago, anyone who is in one of those places when the oath is broken, and of course us – those who felt the second tremor, I imagine you were one of them? – and Merlin survives it all, us all. The walls may fall on his head and he will live through it. He'll be unable to save any of us, either, and will die, eventually, old and alone, knowing he destroyed everything he ever loved.”

“No,” Gwaine tells him vehemently. “No, he won't. He won't break it.”

Gaius sighs, regarding at him with all the wise sadness of age, and Gwaine feels like a child, trying to understand matters far beyond his comprehension. It is a disconcerting feeling, certainly, but it does nothing to lessen his conviction; there are some sins Merlin will commit, but the betrayal of all he holds dear could never be one of them.

Gaius' expression does not change, but the only reply he gives is one of assent. “No,” he says, removing Gwaine's hand from his arm. “I don't suppose he will.”

On the bed next to them, Merlin's eyelids flutter and he smiles, not quite waking, but nearly there.

X

When he does wake, Merlin is still too drained to resume his duties.

Gaius permits him a few hours perambulatory each day, but insists that for the most part he should remain in bed. Lancelot returns to training in the mornings and sleeping in his own room, though he still visits during the afternoon. Gwaine regains the ability to sleep now that Merlin can do something else, though insists on doing so on the floor despite Merlin's demands that he does not; much as he would love to give in, Gwaine knows doing so will not be conducive to Merlin's recovery.

Well and truly exasperated with his confinement after two days, Merlin resorts to sulking, and gets increasingly annoyed when Gwaine (who should also be at training, orders Arthur, but since the first time he left Merlin unaccompanied, he ended up missing for the three hours it took for everyone to find him lying unconscious in the stables, Gwaine has decided to stick around) just finds this funny.

“Lancelot,” Merlin says one day when the other knight is visiting. “Please tell Gwaine I'm going for a walk; if he wishes to follow me like an over-protective puppy, he should prepare to do so.”

“Gwaine, Merlin said–”

“I know what he said. I can hear you, Merlin,” he replies, as he has done almost every other time. “And you've already taken a walk today. You should stay in bed.”

When Lance beings to repeat all this as well, Gwaine decides enough is enough. “Lancelot, stop that! The fool can hear me just fine. Could you give us a minute, please?”

Lance glances at Merlin for permission and Gwaine, seeing no way of expressing his exasperation that is any less dramatic, allows his forehead to fall into his hands. It really shouldn't be this difficult, he thinks, and it wouldn't be, if Merlin wasn't such a child sometimes. Permission is granted, eventually and non-verbally, and Lance leaves, telling (warning?) them that he'll be right outside if he is required.

Gwaine, trying to work out a way to say his piece without irritating Merlin further, lets the silence grow until Merlin breaks it.

“You wanted to say something, Gwaine?” He is no less pissed off than he was before, but at least he now has to talk to Gwaine directly rather than through a third party, which, Gwaine figures, is probably an improvement. “Say it,” he demands, and Gwaine figures he might as well just do so.

“Fine. Would you stop being such a brat, Merlin?” He has tried being patient, he really has, but it's _boring_ and he's not very good at it anyway.

“I will, if you stop being such a dick, Gwaine.”

This, he thinks, is a little uncalled for; certainly, he has been finding Merlin's sulking amusing, but he hasn't been the one talking to his lover through his friends. “I'm sorry?”

“Oh, like you don't know. It's exactly what you did last time; we sleep together, and then you push me away. If I wasn't confined to your room, you probably wouldn't even be talking to me. You're so bloody predictable.”

“I push you away? Idiot.” Gwaine sighs. “You think I don't want you? Of course I do. I'll always want you.” This is such a revealing sentence, to his ears at least, that he thinks about carrying it on, telling Merlin that he loves him, but he has a feeling Merlin won't want to hear it. So he tells the truth, as per usual, but not quite the whole truth. “You're not well; you can barely stay awake after two hours walking around the castle, and unconscious is really not how I like my lovers. When you're recovered, I promise, I will be completely happy to share a bed with you. If that's what you want.”

Merlin looks at him intently, trying to work out just how sincere he is. “Okay,” he says, apparently deciding to take Gwaine at his word.

“Are you going to stop talking to me though other people now?”

“I suppose. Will you try persuade Gaius to let me leave this room slightly more often?”

Gwaine concedes, reluctantly, rolling his eyes as he crosses the room to let Lance back in again.

X

Merlin recovers slowly; it is two weeks from the day Arthur found out about Merlin's magic to the day Gaius gives him permission to return to work. Both Merlin and Gwaine are relieved, Merlin because he is unbelievably bored (so much so that by the end of the first week he gives up the location of his spell book so that Gwaine can fetch it for him. Gwaine ensures he spends the second week regretting it, asking as many questions as he can: what does that one do? Have you used that spell before? Can you teach me something? Will you show me that one later?) and Gwaine because he is tired of trying to keep Merlin in his room, particularly seeing as his most effective means of doing so is not one he permits himself to use for the moment.

Gwaine resumes training, finding that nothing much has changed in his absence, whilst Merlin is less than impressed to realise that despite how poor a servant Arthur thinks he is, the prince has not seen fit to find a temporary replacement for him. Gwaine is equally unimpressed, because it means he and Merlin spend much of Merlin's first afternoon of freedom attempting to restore some sort of order to Arthur's rooms, and as a consequence are too tired to do much more than tumble into bed together, curled up close, and fall asleep.

Gwaine doesn't ask what Merlin has told Gaius about his near constant nightly absence (though he does wonder vaguely whether the old man knows where Merlin is staying or why). He doesn't ask whether Merlin intends to tell anyone that they're sleeping together, or how long he thinks they can keep it quiet. The first question he avoids because he has never actually had a conversation with the parents of a lover and if he doesn't know that Gaius knows, he can continue believing that he doesn't. He avoids the second two questions because the answers don't matter.

Gwaine doesn't care who knows, doesn't really mind if Merlin never willingly tells anyone. He isn't ashamed, and he's pretty sure Merlin isn't either. He's just used to keeping things secret, and if that is how Merlin wants things to be, Gwaine can live with that.

And regardless of who knows it, they are together. Merlin spends most nights in his bed, and Gwaine clears enough space in his drawers for Merlin to keep some clothes there (in the months since he joined in that bar fight and accidentally saved Arthur's life, he has gone from not having enough clothes to fill a drawer to sharing a room and a drawer, his room and drawer, with the same person night after night).

During the day, they are friends again, as though nothing has changed between them, except they keep finding reasons to touch each other (which Gwaine has missed doing, all the time they haven't being talking), or put enough of a twist on a sentence that although it sounds completely innocent to anyone else, it really, truly is not.

It is a game to see who can go furthest without getting caught, a game Gwaine finds himself losing more often than he wins; how can he win, when at any moment Merlin can take control of him? Just how badly he will lose, he does not discover until the day he finds himself propositioning Lance (with similarly terrible pick-up lines to those Merlin tried the time he was outrageously drunk and flirting with everyone) midway though a conversation about Arthur's plans for training the following day.

Lance looks truly horrified, almost as bad as Gwaine feels.

“It's _not_ me.” Gwaine snarls. “It's _not_! It's Merlin, he's making me say things.” Lance looks some combination of relieved and confused, and Gwaine is thankful beyond belief when he doesn't ask for any further explanation.

X

That night, when they are both panting and satiated, Gwaine tells Merlin in a low, angry voice, “if you ever do that to me again, I will tell everyone about us, blood oath be damned.”

Merlin just nods, and smiles in a way that tells Gwaine he won't, but he has other things planned anyway.

Despite his better judgement, Gwaine smiles back.

X

Gwaine thinks it another of Merlin's games when he finds his feet racing to Arthur's room, and dreads whatever is going to happen when he knocks on the door. When he does, though, it is opened by Merlin, and he has no idea whether this should make him more or less concerned.

“Gwaine,” Merlin says, somewhat desperately, “We were just talking about you.” His eyes are wide, and if Gwaine didn't know any better he'd say he was actually afraid.

“Talking about me?” He opens the door further and walks in. Arthur is sitting at his table, making use of the late afternoon sunlight streaming through his windows to rummage through the ever increasing stacks of paper he keeps being given of late, while Merlin, if the low stool surrounded by steel plate is any indication, has been polishing his armour.

Arthur smiles at him. “Yes. Nothing bad, don't worry. I was merely asking about how you discovered Merlin's secret.” That explains Merlin's bug-eyed fear, then, and the fact that it has lessened since Gwaine shut the door behind him. Gwaine himself skips anything resembling afraid, passing straight on to angry. Does Merlin really have to bring him into this? Can he not make something up by himself, just this once?

Still, he sits obediently at the table when Arthur tells him to, hiding his displeasure from the prince (although Merlin's apologetic dipping of his head as he resumes his work suggests he is not so oblivious).

“Oh,” he says. “Didn't I explain that before?”

“No, actually.” Arthur smirks, and Gwaine swears the royal bastard is enjoying this; even if he doesn't know what happened, he must be able to tell that they don't want to talk about it. “You didn't explain, either of you. Other than that you were drunk.”

“Well, we were.” Gwaine, seeing little other option, chooses to lie (yes, he's said many times that a man should be noble by action rather than by blood, but he wants too much to get out of this conversation to care about how hypocritical he's being). “I don't remember too much of it. It was something to do with the fire. Merlin thought I saw his eyes go gold, and I did, but I thought it was because the fire flared, not the other way around. I was drunk.”

Repetition, Gwaine tells himself, is probably not helping, but as the fact that is most conducive to his explanation being accepted, he wants to make sure it is entirely clear.

“Could barely remember my name at the time.” True, he thinks, but it was more Merlin than the drink. “And then I woke up – well, no, first he made me fall asleep, with magic – and Merlin was gone. You came looking for him, and then Lance came and yelled at me, and I thought it was about...something else, something entirely different, so he had to explain. And that is how I found out. Was never meant to, but, well.”

“I see,” Arthur says, after the moment it takes him to realise that that is as complete as that sentence is going to get, then turns to Merlin as something seems to occur to him. “Do you often use magic accidentally, Merlin?”

“Er, no. It's only happened a few times.” Gwaine is both amused and a little offended by Merlin's definition of 'a few', because it is so very different to his own. Merlin continues, adding, in manner that suggests it is supposed to be a reassuring fact, “that was the only time I wasn't expecting it, either.”

Gwaine tries to hide his sigh; it had been going so well until Merlin said that. They could have been free and in the clear, no further explanation required, if only Merlin had kept that to himself.

Arthur seizes upon this piece of information with no less intensity than Gwaine had predicted he would. “So you _expect_ to use magic accidentally? If you expect it to happen, surely you can stop it? Or at least avoid situations where it's likely to happen again?”

Merlin looks aghast at the idea (much to Gwaine's delight), and slightly lost for words.

“Perhaps,” Gwaine says, hoping against hope that this helps rather than hinders their case, “perhaps such circumstances are unavoidable? Like” – he hunts for an example, thinking he should really have come up with one before introducing the possibility of a comparison – “a sneeze, I suppose. Sometimes you just have to sneeze.”

“Perhaps,” Arthur muses, pouting a little as he thinks. “Still, be careful, Merlin. I can only protect you from my father as long as he remains oblivious. Pray that these unavoidable circumstances never occur in his presence.”

“Believe me, Arthur,” Merlin replies, chuckling weakly, “there is very little I pray harder for.”

The conversation over, Gwaine escapes, suppressing a shudder as he does so.

X

Arthur, though, is still remarkably interested in the expected yet unavoidable circumstances that lead to accidental use of magic, so much so that Gwaine takes to shadowing Merlin in order to avoid get carried away to random places by his own feet.

“Isn't there some way to warn me the next time you plan on dragging me into an excruciatingly difficult conversation? Give me some time to think up a story?” He had asked Merlin, after a particularly gruelling thirty seven minutes and fifteen seconds – Gwaine had counted every single one – on whether the accidental magic ever did anything harmful or dangerous.

Merlin had laughed in reply, not unkindly. “I wish there was. Then maybe I could find a way to avoid the conversations all together.”

Today, Arthur has called a break during training, immediately crossing to Merlin (sitting alone, in the absence of Gwen). Gwaine walks there before he can be summoned, snagging Lance by the wrist as he does so. The man makes an excellent buffer, diverting attention from the fact that Gwaine and Merlin know precisely what prompts the accidental usage of magic, even if Gwaine does wish he'd stop glancing gleefully between the pair of them (Lancelot is almost worryingly happy that two of his closest friends are shagging).

“I wonder what it is that causes them?” Arthur says.

“Really could be anything,” Gwaine replies. He and Merlin have developed a careful system in which anything but an outright lie is acceptable (because Merlin has, apparently, had quite enough of lying to his prince, after spending the last three and a bit years doing little else). When a reply very close to the truth is fine, Merlin answers, and when an almost-complete untruth is necessary, Gwaine talks.

“Yes, I suppose it could. Although...” Once again, Arthur has the thoughtful expression – Gwaine has been told, on pain of total abstinence, that he is not allowed to call it a pout, or think it, even if that is very definitely what it is – that suggests a difficult question is approaching. “Has anyone else witnessed it? Or even been present at the time?”

Honestly is undesirable – because each honest answer gives Arthur another piece of information Merlin prefers him not to have – but otherwise acceptable here, so Merlin answers. “No, no one else has seen. I don't think there's ever been anyone around either.”

Arthur finally reaches the conclusion all his questioning has been building up to. “So it seems safe to say Gwaine has something to do with it, then. I wonder if it's just him, or if someone else could act as a catalyst.”

“I think it best not to try,” Gwaine says, with a pointed glance at Merlin. “We wouldn't want anyone else working things out.”

Lance poorly masks his laugh with a cough, the words _possessive, much?_ practically painted across his forehead.

Arthur, luckily, is too busy pout-thinking to notice. “Yes, I suppose not. Still, I wonder, why Gwaine?”

“So do we all,” murmurs Lance under his breath, only to yelp a second later, clapping a hand to his arm. “Merlin, what was that?”

“A bee,” Merlin lies unabashedly, and Gwaine has to admit he's considerably better at dishonesty than he used to be. “Didn't you see it?”

Lance sneers, as much as someone that nice can sneer, and stalks off. Arthur takes this as a cue to resume training.

X

Gwaine is a staunch believer in the adage that it is easier to ask for forgiveness than permission (though his immediate instinct is to run far and fast rather than request either). It is for this reason that he is lurking in the corridors around Arthur's chambers in the hope of kidnapping Merlin to take him hunting.

It has been a truly glorious week, and Gwaine is tired of being stuck in the city when the sun is shining and there are things to do, things far more fun than hit people he isn't allowed to kill with dulled swords. Not that he actually intends on them hunting – he knows Merlin really doesn't enjoy it – but he's willing to mess with Merlin however he can.

Unfortunately, rather than encountering Merlin, he is caught by Arthur. Lacking the same nifty summoning powers Merlin has (which is, in part, some of the reason he's where he is), Gwaine feels justified in swearing under his breath.

“I didn't quite catch that, Gwaine. Would you care to repeat it?” The prince smirks at him when he shakes his head and continues. “Seeing as I find it almost impossible to speak to Merlin without you either being present or appearing within a few sentences, I thought perhaps I could have a few words with you instead, seeing as you're here. Walk with me?”

Gwaine, sadly, cannot think of an excuse – and, as one of Arthur's knights, the prince would know that he doesn't actually have to be wherever he claims he has to be. He's only asking as a courtesy, anyway, since he is well within his rights to command – so he nods, because the consequences of running away without giving an explanation are not worth the brief respite he will have from the conversation.

“Good,” Arthur smiles, and Gwaine doesn't often see what Merlin finds to love in the prince but his approval really is something. “The first matter I wish to address is, of course, your sudden appearance when I'm questioning Merlin about his magic. I take it you have not developed a sudden desire to shirk your duties – more than you usually do – just to talk to the pair of us.”

This is not strictly a question, more a statement, but just because the request for elaboration is unspoken it doesn't mean it's unheard. “No, sire.” Gwaine does enjoy calling Arthur that; the blond prat looks so happy when he does so, and fails entirely to notice the sarcasm with which Gwaine says it.

He doesn't want Merlin to get into trouble, but he sincerely doubts Arthur would ask the question if he didn't already know the answer. “It's Merlin's doing. Think it amuses him, to make me walk places against my will. Asked him to stop, but he won't.”

Arthur stops walking in order to peer pensively out a window. “I thought as much, yes. It was either that or the two of you have become freakishly co-dependent ever since Leon and I discovered Merlin's secret.” Arthur laughs, and Gwaine tries to convince himself he imagined the slight inflection he placed on the word _co-dependent_. His attempt fails miserably, though, when Arthur continues speaking.

“You are admirably protective of him, Gwaine. Slightly too much so, at times; perhaps it would be wise to tone it down when around those who are not in the know, less they begin to question why.”

Again, this is not a question, except it is, and Gwaine hopes that if he pretends he has no idea what Arthur is implying, the prince will decide he is wrong (even if he isn't). “Not sure how keeping an eye out for Merlin will get people thinking he has magic, but if you reckon it's an issue I'll do my best to be more subtle.”

This hope dies when Arthur responds to his sentence with a steady look. “Really, Gwaine? I know you all think I notice very little to do with my manservant, but that was only true in the past when I thought him too... _Merlin_ to keep a secret. An oversight, I admit, but since learning of his magic I've made a point of keeping a closer eye on him. Would you like to know what I've seen?”

Gwaine wants more than almost anything to say no, but if there is even the slightest doubt in Arthur's mind it will vanish as soon as Gwaine makes his discomfort obvious. Instead, he says, in a way he hopes sounds neither too resigned nor too challenging, “Go on, then?”

“Number one,” Arthur begins, grinning in a slightly self-satisfied and really quite sickening way. “Merlin is late a lot less than was usual for him, and when he arrives he is far less out of breath than when he was never on time. Why? Because he is no longer sleeping in Gaius' quarters, instead finding somewhere closer to the centre of the castle to stay.

“Number two: Merlin has mildly suspicious bruises hidden poorly by his scarf and, I notice when he reaches for things in high places, sometimes on his stomach. Why? Because he is getting into many more fights than I have seen him having, or because he has a lover.” The grin broadens, and Gwaine has the impression that Arthur has been waiting to discuss his suspicions for quite some time, if the way he is relishing the opportunity now is anything to go by.

“Number three: said lover lives in the castle, somewhat closer to my chambers than Gaius does.” He pauses, fixing Gwaine with an intense look that only intensifies his squirming.

“Now,” Arthur continues, when Gwaine is fairly sure this conversation couldn't actually get any more uncomfortable. “I am sure you know where I'm going with this, but indulge me a little further. Number four: you, the knights reliably inform me, no longer drink as much as you used to, and have not been seen leaving the tavern with anyone unknown in quite some time – for which, may I add, I am most pleased, because my father may have decided to overlook my knighting commoners in light of the circumstances at the time, but he really would not tolerate the smear your past behaviour left on the rank of knight of Camelot, and you are a rather impressive swordsman.”

He pauses again, clearly expecting some sort of response to this praise (if that is indeed what it is), so Gwaine smiles through the churning in his gut and says, “Thank you.”

Arthur nods. “Number five: Lancelot is far more obvious than the pair of you put together, even with your over-protectiveness and Merlin's inability to discuss accidental magic without you present. Would you like further observations, or is that sufficient to convince you that I know about you and Merlin without you breaking any promises you've made by talking about it?”

When Gwaine stays silent, Arthur seems set to continue (Gwaine wonders just how long the list of observations is, and tells himself that they have to be more carefully if they don't want the whole city to know), so he quickly says, “no, Arthur, that's enough,” then awaits reprimand for his usage of Arthur's first name.

Arthur, however, does not comment, although he does raise an eyebrow laden with disapproval (Gwaine, in some bizarre corner of his mind, wonders if Gaius teaches that, and how much a lesson costs). “Why, pray tell, did you think telling Lancelot was a good idea, and why only Lancelot?”

Gwaine isn't sure what the tone in Arthur's voice is, but it is certainly something. Jealousy, almost, he thinks; Arthur is displeased, behind all his smirking and delight at causing Gwaine discomfort, that Lancelot knew about them before he did, and as much as it amuses Gwaine to know that, Merlin wouldn't be happy with him for reinforcing the idea. Reluctantly, he tells the truth. “Didn't tell him. He found out, same time as I found out about Merlin's magic. One of the last people I'd've told, if it were up to me. And we didn't tell anyone else, 'cause it really isn't any of anyone else's business what we do.” Gwaine hears a faint whisper of defensiveness in his voice and figures he'd better stop talking before it gets any clearer. “You going to tell Merlin you know?”

“I sincerely doubt I shall ever get the opportunity, unless I choose to announce it in public.”

“We'd probably prefer it if you didn't, to be honest.”

“We or he?” This is another question Arthur probably wouldn't be asking if he didn't know the answer, so Gwaine ignores it, choosing instead to stare out of the window and pretend not to feel the scrutiny Arthur is currently subjecting him to.

“Well, Gwaine,” he says eventually, when Gwaine can no longer hide his fidgeting. “You don't seem to be doing any harm. However, if I ever have reason to believe his relationship with you is causing Merlin any more trouble than it does happiness, I will reinstate your banishment from the kingdom. Are we clear?”

Gwaine can only nod, because these words are from Arthur the man, one of Merlin's closest friends, yet they are delivered with all the severity of Arthur the king, who Gwaine has sworn obeisance to and will follow readily until such a time as he is released from his vow, and whilst they are not strictly speaking a threat to his life, the menace is certainly felt. More than just the threat, however, is the implication of a bargain held within them; Arthur won't tell Merlin he knows, if Gwaine doesn't tell Merlin about the possibility of him being forcibly ejected from the kingdom if their relationship ends badly. A nod seems sufficient anyway, because Arthur turns from him and resumes walking, regal and proud, uncaring as to whether or not Gwaine chooses to follow him.

Which, of course, he does, all plans of finding Merlin forgotten for now; he has things he could do in the city, things he _should_ do, and stealing away for a clandestine mid-morning shag in the forest, however much he might want to, is not one of them.

Still, as he catches both Lancelot and Arthur sending him looks that assess him in more ways than his skill at dodging Percival's swings, he does wonder if Merlin has any idea just how many times Gwaine has been and will be threatened for sleeping with him. Of all the numerous and varied ways Gwaine has put his well being, both mental and physical, at risk, this is surely the most extreme.

And, fucking pathetic as he is, he wouldn't change it for the world.


End file.
